The Snow Child (13 page)

He lost track of how far he had come or how long he had been gone, yet he kept on, past their 160-acre homestead, up into the foothills of the mountains where he had hunted moose and beyond, to where the trees dwindled to alpine birch shrubs and Labrador tea. He followed a ridge that looked down over the snowy river valley and followed her still higher, until he crested a rise and found himself in a narrow mountain gorge with steep shale cliffs.

An eerie gust of wind came down the gorge. Farther up he could see a waterfall of ice pouring off the mountain between the rocky cliffs. Below him, the creek trickled and bubbled beneath ice and wound its way through rock and willow. The girl, though, was nowhere to be seen.

He cautiously followed her tracks up the ravine, and then they disappeared into the snowy hillside. It didn’t make sense, yet that is what he saw—her trail didn’t continue up the hill or along the creek; it ran into the side of the mountain. Then he noticed what looked like a small door set into the hillside beneath a rounded dome of snow. Jack crouched behind a boulder, a cold sweat on the back of his neck. He could go to that little door and call out to the girl, but he didn’t. What did he expect to find? A fairy-tale beast that holds young girls captive in a mountain cave? A cackling witch? Or nothing at all, no child, no tracks, no door, only insanity bared in the untouched snow? That is perhaps what he feared the most, that he would discover he had followed nothing more than an illusion.

Rather than face that possibility, Jack turned his back on the little door and set out for home. For a while, he followed the tracks. At times there were two sets—the child’s small prints and his larger ones. Other times there were just his own, and Jack knew he had probably destroyed the child’s with his big boots as he followed her. Still, the sight of his solitary tracks winding through the trees left him uneasy. As it grew darker he feared the meandering trail would keep him in the woods into the coldest, blackest hours of the night, so he left the trail and headed directly toward the riverbed below. From there he could follow the Wolverine back to their homestead and, he hoped, be at the cabin within an hour.

But the route proved difficult as it pulled him down into steep ravines where the snow was well over his knees and forced him through a dense forest of black spruce that threatened to disorient him. He didn’t recognize the river when he reached it, not until he had walked partway out onto the ice and heard the roar beneath him. He eased backward until he was sure he was on firm ground, and then he walked downstream, relying on the vague outline of the riverbed to guide him toward their homestead.

He expected Mabel would be waiting for him and wanting answers. It was reasonable, and yet it grated on him. He was tired, aching, and surely frostbit, and he had nothing to offer her but a tired old man who quaked in his boots at a child’s door.

The next morning Jack woke to the sound of Mabel’s knocking about the cabin. Dishes clattered, a broom swished, bumps and thumps—these were the unmistakable sounds of her irritation. Jack eased himself out of bed.

They each went about their chores, but Mabel’s anger seemed only to grow, and her footsteps fell heavier and her sighs more audible. Eventually, she would relent, but the breach would become wider and deeper. Jack knew this, yet he could not find the strength to stop it. He escaped to the barn and the woodpile, and left Mabel with her sighs.

For the next several days, he worked in the barn or yard, though he knew he should be burning stump piles in the fields. He watched the trees and searched the snow for tracks. If the girl comes back, he told himself, I won’t run after her. I won’t frighten her away.

So when the girl appeared at Jack’s elbow nearly a week later, he did not give chase but instead went about his work as if she wasn’t there. He stacked split wood beside the barn, one piece after another. Eventually the girl sat on a round of spruce and watched. When dusk fell, Jack went into the barn to put away the maul and ax. The girl followed just a few steps behind and stopped at the barn door. When he came back out, she was there, watching him with her wide blue eyes. He walked past without acknowledging her. Over his shoulder he called, “Time for supper. Let’s go in.”

And the girl followed. Jack held the cabin door open for her. She entered gingerly, as if the floor might fall out from under her, but all the same she came in. As she stepped across the threshold and into the warmth, the thin layer of frost on her coat and hat melted. Jack watched the bits of ice on her moccasins dwindle to nothing and the frost on her eyelashes turn to droplets. The child’s eyes were left wet, as if she had been crying.

Mabel was working at the kitchen counter, her back to them. Jack closed the door.

“I think we might need some more wood on the fire—” she said, turning with a pot of boiled potatoes in her hands. She looked up and saw the little girl beside Jack and her mouth formed a little circle as if she might make a sound, but instead she dropped the pot of potatoes.

“Oh, oh.” Mabel stared at her feet, soaking wet and covered in bits of potato. “Oh dear.” The girl had stepped back, startled at the clamor of the pot hitting the floor but now, in the silent cabin, she let out a little giggle and put her red mittens over her mouth.

Mabel quickly scooped the potatoes back into the pot and used a towel to soak up the water. All the while her eyes never left the child.

“I’ll take your coat for you,” Jack said.

The girl took off her mittens, and as he reached to take them she drew something out of her coat pocket. It was a small animal, white fur and black nose, and Jack was prepared for it to writhe and jump. But it was a lifeless pelt, less than a foot long snout to tail.

“An ermine?”

The child nodded and held it out to him. Beneath the fur its dried skin crinkled like thin parchment paper. Mabel came to his side and touched the tiny empty eyelids and the bristly whiskers. She ran her fingers down the white fur to the black-tipped tail.

“That’s a nice little pelt,” he said and went to give it back to the child. But she shook her head.

“Put it back in your pocket so you don’t forget it.”

Again the barest shake of her head, a small smile.

“She wants us to have it,” Mabel whispered.

“Is that it? Is it for us?”

A smile.

“Are you sure?” he said.

A vigorous nod.

Jack hung the ermine from a hook by the kitchen window and smoothed the back of his hand down the white fur. Mabel bent down toward the child. “Thank you,” she said.

“Here you are.” He pulled a chair out from the table. “You can sit here.”

The girl sat, coat and mittens piled on her lap, the marten-fur hat still on her head.

“Are you sure I can’t take those for you?” he asked.

The girl didn’t speak.

“All right. Suit yourself.”

As Mabel put a plate of moose steaks in the middle of the table, she glanced at Jack, widened her eyes questioningly and raised her eyebrows. He shrugged almost imperceptibly.

“I suppose we won’t be having potatoes, will we?” Mabel said. She looked at the girl and smiled. “We do have some of those awful sailor biscuits. I guess that’ll have to do. And some boiled carrots.”

CHAPTER 12

N
ever had Mabel imagined the little girl would be sitting before them, at their own kitchen table. How had this come to be? The moment had the surreal fast-and-slow movement of a dream. She set an empty plate in front of the child and fought the urge to grab her hand, to touch her and see if she was real. She and Jack sat in their chairs. He folded his hands in his lap and bowed his head. Mabel did as well, but could not stop looking at the girl.

She was even smaller than she had appeared at a distance, and the chair back towered around her. With her coat on, the child had looked almost roly-poly as she sprinted through the trees, but now Mabel saw her thin arms and small shoulders. She wore that same cotton dress with tiny flowers on it, but Mabel could see now that it was a summer dress for a grown woman. Beneath it, she wore a long-underwear shirt that was too small; the sleeves did not reach her thin wrists. The girl’s hair was white-blond, but when Mabel studied it, she saw that woven and twisted among the strands were gray-green lichens, wild yellow grasses, and curled bits of birch bark. It was strange and lovely, like a wild bird’s nest.

“Dear Lord,” Jack began. The girl did not close her eyes or bow her head but, unblinking, watched Jack. Delicate lips, the hint of bones beneath rounded child cheeks, a small nose—Mabel found herself recalling the face Jack had carved into the snow. The child’s face was gentle and young, but there was a fierceness as well, in the flash of blue in her eyes and the point of her little chin.

“We thank you for this food and for this land…” Jack paused. Mabel couldn’t remember him choosing his words so carefully for a blessing. “We ask you to be with us as we… share this meal, with each other and with… with this child who has joined us.”

The girl opened her eyes wider and glanced from Jack to Mabel, her lips pressed together.

“Amen.”

“Amen,” repeated Mabel. The girl watched, her hands bundled in her coat, as Mabel served moose steaks onto each plate. Then she leaned forward slightly, as if to inspect the meat.

“Oh. Let me get those awful crackers.” Mabel stood and walked behind the girl, pausing for a moment to take in her fragrance—fresh snow, mountain herbs, and birch boughs. Mabel allowed her hand to slide along the back of the chair, her fingertips barely touching the girl’s hair. Perhaps it was not a dream after all.

As soon as Jack and Mabel began to eat, the girl did as well. She picked up the sailor cracker, sniffed it loudly, and then set it down again. Mabel laughed. “I agree wholeheartedly,” she said and set her own cracker aside.

The girl then picked up the meat with her hands, smelled it, and bit into it. When she saw Jack and Mabel watching, she put it down. Jack used his knife and fork to slice pieces off his own steak and eat them.

“It’s all right, dear,” Mabel said. “You eat it any way you want.”

The girl hesitated, then picked it up in her hands again. She didn’t devour it the way Mabel expected, like a starving pup, but instead ate it daintily, little nibbles here and there, but eating every bit, even a line of gristle that ran through it. Then the child picked up each slice of boiled carrot and carefully ate it. Her plate was clean even as Jack and Mabel continued to cut their meat.

“Would you like some more? No? Are you sure? There’s plenty here.”

Mabel was alarmed to notice how flushed the child’s cheeks had become. Her eyes had gone glassy as if from fever.

“You’re too warm, child,” Mabel said. “Let me take your coat. Your hat.”

The girl shook her head firmly. Along the bridge of her nose, tiny beads of sweat formed, and as Mabel watched, a large droplet slid down the child’s temple.

“Open the door,” Mabel whispered to Jack.

“What?”

“The door. Prop it open.”

“What? It’s well below zero.”

“Please,” she begged. “Can’t you see? It’s much too hot in here for her. Go—open the door!”

So Jack did, and he wedged a piece of firewood in the doorway to keep it open.

“There, child. That will cool you. Are you well?”

The girl’s eyes were wide, but she nodded.

“Do you have a name?” Mabel asked. Jack frowned. Perhaps she pushed too quickly, but she couldn’t help herself. She was desperate to seize the child, to hold her and not let go.

“I’m Mabel. This is Jack. Do you live nearby? Do you have a mother and father?”

The girl seemed to understand but gave no expression.

“What’s your name?” Mabel asked.

At this the child stood. Her coat was on before she reached the doorway.

“Oh, don’t leave. Please,” Mabel said. “I’m sorry if I asked too many questions. Please stay.”

But the girl was already out the door. She did not seem angry or frightened. As her feet hit the snow, she turned back to Mabel and Jack.

Thank you, she said, her voice a quiet bell in Mabel’s ear. And then she slipped away into the night with her long blond hair trailing down her back. Mabel remained in the open door until the cold air seeped in around her feet.