The Snow Child: A Novel (29 page)

Jack touched the girl’s chin and turned her face up to his.

What’s happened to you, Faina? Are you all right?

Oh, this?

The girl looked at her hands.

I was skinning rabbits, she said.

Her eyes were wide, expectant.

I’m here, she said. I’ve come back.

Of course you have. Of course, and Mabel said it easily, as if there had never been a doubt.

How… but Jack’s words were lost as Mabel ushered the girl to the table.

I knew it would be soon, she said. That’s why I’ve hurried so. I just finished tonight. But wait. I’m rushing ahead of myself. You need to wash up and get settled, yes?

Faina smiled and held out her hands. They were cold-chafed and stained, each fingernail rimmed with blood, but Mabel merely clucked like a mother hen, as if it were a bit of dirt smudged on a boy who had played in the mud. She tucked her sewing project onto one of the chairs.

Well, let’s see, she said. I had water on the stove already for tea. There should be enough to wash with.

Faina smiled shyly. Before long, Mabel was sitting with her, washing her hands in soapy, lukewarm water, wiping her face with a washcloth. Jack stood beside the woodstove, bewildered as much by his wife’s calm as by the child’s appearance. When Mabel left to get something from the bedroom, Jack strode to Faina’s side, knelt at her chair, fought the urge to embrace her again.

He pointed to the bloody water in the basin and spoke more sternly than he intended.

What is all this? Where have you been? What has happened to you?

Jack, don’t pester her so, Mabel said from behind him. She’s tired to the bone. Let her rest.

Faina started to speak, but Mabel shushed her gently and held the mirror up for the child to see.

Everything’s fine now. You’re here, safe and sound. And you look beautiful.

It was true. The child was alive and well, here in their cabin. Garrett had doubted it was even possible, and Jack felt a rush of pride in her. She had survived, against all odds.

What do you think? Mabel asked Jack, turning Faina to face him.

The child stretched out her arms and gazed down at the new coat. Jack had never seen anything like it. It was the cool blue of a winter sky, with silver buttons that glistened like ice and white fur trim at the hood and cuffs and along the bottom edge. But the coat’s splendor came from the snowflakes. The varying sizes and designs gave them movement, so they seemed to twirl through the blue wool. Its strange beauty suited the child.

Lovely, he said, and he had to choke back his emotion at the sight of the little girl in the snowflake coat, come home at last.

How about you? he asked. Do you like your new coat?

The child didn’t speak, but seemed to frown.

Faina? Oh, dear child, it’s all right, Mabel said. If you don’t like it, it’s all right. It’s just a coat.

The girl shook her head, no, no.

Really. It’s nothing. If it’s too tight, I can make another. If it’s too big, we can set it aside for another year. Don’t fret.

You did this? Faina whispered. You made this, for me?

Well, yes. But it’s nothing but fabric and a few stitches.

The girl smoothed her hands down the front, over the snowflakes falling one by one.

Do you like it?

In answer, the girl leapt to Mabel’s arms and turned to rest her head against Mabel’s shoulder, and in the child’s smiling face Jack saw such affection.

I love it more than anything, she said against Mabel’s arm.

Oh, you couldn’t make me happier. Mabel stood and held the child’s hands in her own and looked her up and down.

It does fit well, doesn’t it?

The girl nodded, then glanced to where her old coat hung.

I was thinking, Faina. Perhaps I could take your old coat
and make it into a blanket for you. That way, you’d still have it. Would that be all right? I’d have to cut it into pieces, but then I could sew them back together into a nice new blanket.

Really? You could? And I’d still have it?

Oh, yes. Most definitely yes.

Mabel was giddy and talkative as she cooked dinner, not allowing Jack or the child to speak of anything except the joy of being together. Maybe that should have been enough. Maybe he should have been grateful, without asking for more.

It was only when the cabin became overheated, with the woodstove and steam from cooking, when the girl seemed to wilt in her chair, only then did Jack sense some ripple beneath the surface, some doubt or fear in Mabel’s desperate happiness. She dashed to the door and brought in a handful of snow. She dabbed it to the girl’s cheeks and forehead.

There, there. It’s much too hot in here. There, there.

Jack put the back of his hand to the child’s forehead, but she was cool to the touch.

I suspect she’s just tired, Mabel.

But she continued with the snow, putting some to the girl’s lips.

Too hot, too hot, Mabel murmured. Please, get some more snow.

Jack opened the door to the swirling storm, driven in all directions by the wind off the river. It was a miserable night. She’d be soaked through in no time, and the wind would suck away any last heat. He would not let the girl leave, not to go back to that cold, lifeless hovel in the mountains.

You’ll stay here tonight, he said as he brought in another handful of snow.

Mabel frowned.

Will she?

Yes.

He spoke with more confidence than he felt.

The girl sat forward in her chair, her blue eyes narrowed and fierce.

I will go, she said.

Not tonight, he said. You’ll stay here with us.

Oh yes, you must, child. Can’t you hear that wind blowing? You can sleep in the barn.

Jack wondered at his wife. The barn? Why would she suggest such a thing? It was freezing out there, nearly as cold as being outdoors, but she persisted.

You’ll be comfortable, she said. We even have a little bedroom made up, for the boy who helped us this summer. It’s perfectly cozy and out of the wind.

Faina was on her feet. When she looked at Jack she didn’t speak, but it was as if she were shouting. You promised. You can’t keep me here.

He wondered what he could do. Physically hold the child, force her to stay against her will? She would fight like a trapped polecat. She would hit and scream, maybe even bite and scratch, of that he had no doubt, and he would be left feeling a beast himself.

But he could not let her go back to the lonely wilderness after stumbling, bloodstained, into their home. If she were injured or killed, when he could have kept her safe, he would never forgive himself.

Faina had already fastened the shining silver buttons on her new coat.

Please don’t be angry, she said.

Can’t you hear the wind? Jack said.

The child was already at the door. He waited for Mabel to protest, even to beg.

All right, she said. If you must go, you must. But you’ll be back, won’t you? Promise to always come back.

Solemnly, as if swearing an oath, the child said, I promise.

Jack watched her leave, and it seemed like a disturbing dream, the child with her blood-smeared brow and twisted blond hair and snowflake coat, and his wife, composed and accepting. He stood some time at the window, staring into the night. Behind him Mabel bustled with the dishes and sewing scraps.

“How could you have known?” he asked.

“Hmmm?”

“How could you have known she was coming back? Now? Ever?”

“It’s the first snow. Just like that night.”

Jack looked at her, slowly shook his head, not comprehending.

“Don’t you remember? The night when we built the snow child. Snowflakes as big as saucers. Remember? We threw snowballs at each other. Then we made her. You carved her lovely face; I put on her mittens.”

“What are you saying, Mabel?”

She went to her shelves and brought back an oversized book bound in blue leather, adorned with silver gilding.

“Here,” she slid it across the table toward him. “You won’t be able to read it, though. It’s in Russian.”

Jack lifted the book. It was surprisingly heavy, as if the pages were made of lead rather than paper. He flipped through the illustrations, impatient.

“What is this?”

“It’s a storybook…”

“I can see that. What’s that to do with—”

“It’s about an old man and an old woman. More than anything they want a child of their own, but they can’t have one. Then, one winter night, they make a little girl out of snow, and she comes to life.”

Jack felt a stomach-turning sinking, as if he had stepped into bottomless wet sand and try as he might could not get back onto firm ground.

“Stop,” he said.

“She leaves each summer, and comes back when it snows. Don’t you see? Otherwise… she would melt.” Mabel looked a little frightened at her own words, but she didn’t falter.

“Jesus, Mabel, what are you saying?”

She opened the book to an illustration of the old man and old woman kneeling beside a beautiful little girl, her feet and legs bound in snow and her head crowned in silver jewels.

“See?” she said. She spoke like a nurse at a bedside, calm and knowing. “You see?”

“No, Mabel. I don’t see at all.” He slammed the book closed and stood. “You’ve lost your mind. You’re telling me you think that little child, that little girl, is some sort of spirit, some sort of snow fairy. Jesus. Jesus.”

He stomped to the other side of the cabin, wanting to escape but unable.

Mabel gently pulled the book back and slid her hands up and down the leather. She was shaking slightly.

“I know it sounds implausible, but don’t you see?” she said. “We wished for her, we made her in love and hope, and she came to us. She’s our little girl, and I don’t know how exactly,
but she’s made from this place, from this snow, from this cold. Can’t you believe that?”

“No. I can’t.” He had the urge to take Mabel by the shoulders and shake her.

“Why not?”

“Because… because I know things you don’t.”

Now she looked frightened. She held the book to her chest, her lips pursed and trembling.

“What do you know?”

“Jesus Christ, Mabel, I buried her father. He drank himself to death in front of that poor child. She begged him to stop. She put her little hands to his face, trying to warm him even as he was dying in front of her. Her own father. All those days I was gone? Where did you think I was? I was up there, in the mountains, trying to help her. Digging a goddamned grave in the middle of winter.”

“But you never told me this.” As if he was lying, inventing this awful tale to prove her wrong. So tightly she held on to her illusions. Jack clenched his jaw again and again, felt the muscle work as he bit back his anger.

“She made me promise not to tell you or anyone else.” It sounded so weak. A grown man making a promise like that to a little girl. He’d been a fool.

“What about a mother?”

“Dead, too. When she was just a baby.” He was old and tired and couldn’t holler such things in an argument. “I think it must have been consumption. Faina said she died of a coughing sickness, in the Anchorage hospital.”

She stared blankly. Her head nodded slightly, all the blood drained from her face. He went to her, knelt beside her chair, took her hands in his.

“I should have told you. I’m sorry, Mabel. I am. I’d like it to
be true, that she was ours, that she was a wilderness pixie. I would have liked that, too.”

She whispered through her teeth, “Where does she live?”

“What?”

“Where does she live?”

“In a sort of cabin dug into the side of the mountain. It’s not that bad, really. It’s dry and safe, and she has food. She takes care of herself.” He wanted to believe that the child was tough and sure-footed, like a mountain goat.

“By herself? Out there?”