North Child (5 page)

Throwing a red, red ball.

A voice like gravel.

Lost.

Then…

Huge, lumbering body.

Four legs, not two. Wide silent feet.

Smells, overwhelming.

Hunger, all the time.

And hot. Prickling, stuffed-in heat.

Need to move, always move.

Find the cold lands.

Snow and ice.

White, endless.

Alone.

Lost.

A red ball. Lost.

Lost.

Rose was different from the rest of us.

Her eyes were not blue like ours but a striking purple that looked black in some lights. She was small and stocky, with gleaming hair the colour of chestnuts. My hair was brown as well, but the rest of our family had fair hair, and we were all long-limbed and tall – all except for Rose. Yet despite her short legs, she managed to move faster than any of us.

She was different in other ways, too. She was noisier, more independent.

“Rose knows her own mind,” Father would say. He said she was a throwback to Mother's great-grandfather, the explorer. But Mother would disagree, saying Rose was just a bit wild starting out and would settle into her true east nature as she grew up. She always pointed to Rose's love of sewing and weaving as proof of her theory. “The interests of an east-born, if I've ever seen them,” she'd say confidently. “She'll settle down. You'll see.” I wasn't so sure.

It was because of Rose and her short, fast-moving legs that I first learned how quickly and how easily you can lose that which you love the most. The second poem I wrote was about losing Rose. It was a clumsy effort, heavily influenced by a legendary poet's version of Freya's lament when Odur was lost to her; I relied heavily on the phrase
cruel waters.
Rose was two years old at the time and I was only six.

Mother was baking and the rest of us were scattered about, doing chores around the farm. Rose was taking her morning nap, or at least that was what Mother thought. When she went to check on her, Mother discovered that Rose's small bed was empty. Calling Rose's name, she began searching the house. Not finding her, she went outside and her shouts grew louder and more frantic. Soon we were all caught up in the search.

We spread out, each heading away from the farmhouse in a different direction. Being the youngest, I was sent northeast, as it seemed the least likely direction she would go; there was an old stone wall there that no two-year-old could climb.

Or so we thought.

There was some snow on the ground, though the day was not bitter cold. When I reached the stone wall, I climbed up (with some difficulty) and sat atop it, peering around. Despite my parents' certainty that she would never have gone this way, I wasn't so sure. I knew my baby sister well enough to know that she always did what my parents least expected. The stone wall bordered a small meadow that gradually turned into a hill. Just beyond this hill lay a much bigger, rockier crag, and on the other side of that was a steep drop into a gorge with a pool of water at the bottom.

I saw no sign of Rose in the small meadow, nor on the hill. But suddenly uneasy, I ran across both, and then climbed the rocky crag. When I got to the top, I looked down. Standing beside the pool was a large white bear. Rose dangled limp from its mouth, and they were both dripping with water.

The creature swung its head to face me, then began moving up the rocks towards me. I stood still, frozen by fear. I could see that the white bear was carrying Rose by her clothing – a bunched-up wad at the back of her neck – like a mother cat carrying a kitten. The animal stopped a stone's throw from me and gently laid Rose down. Just before it turned to move away, I caught a glimpse of the bear's eyes. The expression there was like none I'd ever encountered in an animal before. It was a look of immense sadness.

I quickly kneeled beside Rose. I listened to her chest and found she was breathing steadily, but she was pale and still, and there were vivid red scrapes on her cheek and knees. Then her eyes opened and she smiled. “Neddy,” she said happily, putting her arms around my neck.

I picked her up and carried her home. I told my parents where I had found her but not about the bear. I don't know why not. Perhaps I thought that none of my family would believe me, that they'd think it was a story I'd made up. But that wasn't the reason. There was something about the bear that frightened me, something beyond its bigness and fierceness, and I didn't want to think about it, let alone talk about it.

Somehow Rose had climbed over the stone wall, made her way across the meadow, climbed up both the gentle hill and the rocky crag, then slipped and slid down the other side into the icy water of the gorge. Father thought Rose must have crawled out of the water herself. But I knew it was the bear that pulled her from the pool, and that it had probably saved her life. She would have drowned if the bear had not rescued her.

Rose had no memory of the bear. I'm quite sure she never actually saw it.

And I never told anyone.

Warm place.

Skin itches, all the time.

Plunging into cool water, relief.

Purple eyes. A child.

Up above on the rocks.

Smiling down unafraid.

I remember.

Long ago.

A ball.

A red ball.

Then nothing.

Lost.

The girl above.

Falling.

Purple eyes shut. Her face.

Floating, bruised.

Lift her up, above water.

A boy. Pale eyes, frightened.

Thin arms. Raises her to him.

Takes her away.

Alone.

Father told me that my first gift was a pair of boots, made of the soft leather of reindeer hide. Which was very fitting, for I loved wearing boots.

I always wore my older brothers' and sisters' hand-me-downs, though that never bothered me. The boots had already been resoled many times by the time I got them, but I must have put more miles on those boots than all of my brothers and sisters together.

By the time I was five or six, I had already gone missing more times than my parents could count. One of my favourite games was to imagine myself a bold explorer, like my grandfather and great-grandfather. I had made it my goal to discover and claim every square inch of the land that lay within walking distance of our farm.

On the day I first saw a white bear, I had slipped out of the house when my sister Selme was distracted by a frog I had hidden in a pan in the kitchen cupboard. I climbed the stone wall that lay to the northeast of our farm and ran through the meadow, but instead of climbing the rocky crag (which I'm told I had fallen off of and then nearly drowned when I was two years old), I headed due north. I walked a very long way, finally coming upon a small grove of trees. There, standing among them, was a white bear. It stood very still, watching me.

I stopped, staring with delight at the snow-white fur. I wasn't close enough to see its eyes clearly and what expression they held, but I was too young to be afraid, so I smiled widely at the animal. It gazed at me for a short time, then turned and lumbered away. I tried following, but it had vanished. Soon I got hungry and turned towards home.

I didn't tell Mother and Father about seeing the white bear, especially Mother, because I knew she'd insist on keeping me even closer to home. “You see!” she'd say. “Dangerous wild animals are out there. It's not safe.”

I told Neddy, though, and was disappointed at his reaction. He frowned and said in that superior, older brother tone I hated, “You mustn't go anywhere near a white bear, Rose. They are dangerous and fierce creatures, with long, sharp teeth that will gobble you up. They are always hungry and they move very fast.” He acted like he was some kind of expert on white bears.

I didn't pay any attention to him. From then on the white bear was my imaginary companion on all my explorations. I would pretend that I was riding along on its white-fur back, the two of us a fierce duo conquering and claiming new lands by the score.

I spent much of my childhood longing, in vain, to see a white bear again. It was extremely rare to see white bears in our part of the country. They were ice bears,
isbjorn,
that usually made their home in the snowy north.

Watching for the child.

The girl with purple eyes.

Purple eyes.

And her smiling mouth.

Standing in the trees, watching her.

The girl.

Taller.

Unafraid.

She moves towards me.

Purple eyes, trusting.

Cannot.

Not safe for her.

Hunger.

Hunger.

Hunger.

Must go.

Quickly.

To feed.

Now.

Then return.

When Rose was five, she began to weave. The first thing she made was a belt with a crude design of a white bear. Those were her two passions: weaving (or sewing) and exploring with her imaginary white bear.

Inside the house she could always be found weaving belts on her small, rigid heddle loom. When we had more belts than we could ever use (some of the farm animals even sported Rose's belts), Mother taught Rose to work the household loom. By age eight Rose was her older sisters' equal when it came to weaving.