Freydis’ benefactor stood beside her. Oona’s father looked embarrassed, like he couldn’t believe he had just purchased another fortune either. He hadn’t intended to buy it, not until Freydis shared a bit of it for free. This fortune wasn’t about a child – a boy who would never be – it was about his ship. What she had to say might save him and all of his men. Even if it turned out to be false, he couldn’t take a risk that big.
“Go on,” the captain growled impatiently as he glared at Freydis Spits. “Get on with it. Tell me what you’ve heard.”
Even though the captain paid for the fortune, Freydis shared it with everyone. She coughed to clear her throat, stuffed the silver coin in the deepest fold of her rancid coat and yelled across the gathered crowd:
CAPTAIN BRITT,
GATHER YOUR MEN, PREPARE YOUR SHIP;
SET SAIL NOW OR FREEZE.
WINTER IS COMING EARLY THIS YEAR;
THE DEADLIEST; THE DARKEST AND THE COLDEST
WINTER IN FIFTY YEARS.
*
At first, no one believed Freydis Spits. After all, why should they? She had never voiced a true prediction in the village before. But then the signs of an early winter started to appear.
First the cobbles that lined Nordlor grew awfully cold for that time of year. Then, snow began to dust the rooftops in the village. Snow didn’t normally appear for another two months. Three days later a flock of owls so large they turned the sky above Nordlor dark, flew south. They only left the North when they sensed danger on the wind.
While the village folk may have been able to ignore Freydis Spits, they could not ignore this. The day after the owls turned Nordlor black, chaos erupted in the streets of the village. Though no one wanted to believe the fortune teller was right, they were now too afraid to doubt that she was wrong. Winter in the North was never kind, and if it came early it was sure to be a cruel one.
The Gandering Gull became old news as the village folk flooded the main square and stocked up on items for winter.
Padded coats sold out in ten minutes, pickled herring was gone in thirty and by the end of the first hour all the whale meat leftover from the previous winter was stacked neatly in the top of Mister Bjorkman’s tower.
“I’ll be able to sell it for ten times as much when winter hits,” he gloated to Lady Summer as he raced off to buy five crates of reindeer jerky.
Even the store owners themselves were panicking. Before the crowds hit, Mister Blom the baker hid half of the day’s bread out the back. And when he closed that night he shoved eight sacks of flour and another nine of grain beneath the bakery floor. Mister Enger the candlestick maker hid ten barrels of whale wax and one thousand yards of wick in his attic. And Mister Ritland the tanner nailed fifty-five coats to the walls of his home to insulate the rooms.
By the time evening fell every store in Nordlor had run out of stock and talk turned to where they could get more from. While some believed that robbery was the best option, others fought for a far more ethical solution. When the disagreements dissolved into fights that started in the taverns and spread out on to the streets, there was only one thing for it. The council of elders had to be called.
In Nordlor, important decisions were made by the ten most ancient men in the village. When they gathered it was called the Sitting of the Elders because they were all too old to stand.
Oona doubted this was the greatest way to solve problems. After all, half of the council members couldn’t remember their own names, let alone the topics they debated. But Nordlor, in many ways, was a backward place: a place where tradition came before sense. And so, whenever important decisions were made, they were made by the council of elders.
The council ruled over decisions that affected the entire village. One time they sent all the children to Islo to protect them from an outbreak of plague and another time they closed the gates of Nordlor to keep an aurora of man-eating bears away. After the birth of Oona Britt, her father had tried to get the elders to banish Freydis from the village: they had the power to do that. But the elders refused. If they banished one person for upsetting another, soon there would be no one left. The only way someone could be banned from Nordlor was if they upset the entire populace.
When it wasn’t used as a school house the village hall was used as the meeting place for the elders. Today, Oona’s father was the guest of honour. The villagers weren’t invited to the meeting, but Oona had sneaked into the roof before they gathered so she could watch.
“There’s only one thing for it,” an elder said after the topic of debate had been introduced. “The Plucky Leopard has to leave early. Otherwise it will never make it back before winter closes in. If that happens, the river to Nordlor will freeze over and we’ll have no whale meat for food and no whale oil for light. We’ll starve and die in the dark.”
“But what if the darn woman’s wrong?” Oona’s father blustered from where he stood before the council. “What if we leave early and winter is just how it is every year? Me and my men will be stuck at sea for months before the whales return north after feeding season.”
“It is possible that Freydis Spits is wrong,” another of the elders said. “Though, she does have quite a good record with ships, Captain. Remember the whaler Roe? She saved it from sinking on its maiden trip.”
“And what about the Gandering Gull?” said a third elder. “Strong currents must have carried it all the way down here. It’s an omen, I tell you. It’s an omen, you hear? An omen that come this winter we’ll all be as dead as the poor men aboard that cursed ship.”
Several of the elders murmured and nodded in agreement.
“Fine,” Oona’s father said. “Let’s say the blasted woman is telling the truth. How long until I have to leave?”
The elders whispered amongst themselves for several minutes. Finally, they turned to the captain and one amongst them spoke.
“To be on the safe side you should leave within the week.”
“This week?” the captain yelled. “But that’s too soon.”
Oona agreed. If her father sailed north this week then she and her six sisters would go south at the same time. It wasn’t fair. She was a northern girl, not a southern one.
But though Oona agreed with her father, it appeared none of the elders did.
“If you wait any longer you might be too late,” one of them said.
“Your stubbornness will curse us all to death,” agreed another.
“You are too young to remember what happened in the last deep winter,” said a third. “But we are not. Two hundred men, women and children starved and froze and died in these streets. It was so dark that some bodies weren’t found until spring. They looked as fresh as the day they fell. Nothing could survive in that cold, not even rot or mould. We lost half the village as we waited for the Gandering Gull to come back. But it took fifty years for that ship to return. If they had left this harbour only a few weeks earlier those two hundred people may have lived.”
A silence fell over the hall as the elders remembered all those who lost their lives in the last Great Winter. Eventually, Oona’s father broke the quiet.
“All right,” he said with a resigned sigh. “I’ll do as you say. The Plucky Leopard will set sail three days from today.”
A LONG JOURNEY AHEAD
After the elders made their decision, preparation for the Britts’ journey south sped up. To help them get ready, the family paid a visit to Lady Summer: the only woman from the South who now called Nordlor home. Lady Summer taught them all about southern customs, southern food and southern clothing.
According to Lady Summer, the styles in the South were very different to the styles in the North. Instead of dresses made of sealskin and thick coats made of fox fur, the dresses in the South were made of something lighter, called silk, and the shoes weren’t made from wood and leather, but lace.
Lady Summer was very happy to help them prepare for their journey south. In fact, when they arrived she had everything ready, inclu
ding seven pairs of southern dresses and seven pairs of matching shoes. To Oona, it looked like she had been preparing for their trip south longer than they had.
“It all seems a bit silly to me,” Oona said as she and her six sisters tried on their southern shoes. “I mean, what’s the point of wearing a dress that’s so thin you can feel the wind through it? And these shoes.” Oona lifted one of her feet. It was bound in thin white lace. “If you tread in a puddle they’ll be ruined in an instant. And anyway,” Oona continued, “why are we even going south? I mean, if the South is so great why did you come here?”
Oona turned to look at Lady Summer. As she did, her mother whacked her across the head with a shoe. Luckily, it too was made from lace, so Oona hardly felt a thing.
“Oh, do shut up, Oona,” her mother snapped. “Lady Summer is a lady. You can’t ask her things like that. It’s not polite.”
“No. No,” Lady Summer said. “It’s perfectly all right.” She turned from Missus Britt and looked down at her youngest daughter. “I left the South because I fell in love with a northern man. Unfortunately, he didn’t fall in love with me. He left on a ship ten years ago – fled, I think is the correct term – and I’ve lived here alone ever since.”
“Why didn’t you go back home?” Oona asked.
“I didn’t really like the South,” Lady Summer admitted. “It’s not the nicest place in the world. Most of the time it’s far too hot and there isn’t as much food as you would think. At least, not much food for—”
“Well, I think that’s enough for today,” Missus Britt said loudly. She feared that if Lady Summer spoke ill of the South, none of her daughters would want to leave. And that would make the captain very angry. “Don’t worry about us. We know what we’re doing. You’ve never seen true winter before, not like the one that’s coming. Mark my words, Lady Summer, in two months’ time you’ll be wishing you never left the South.”
While the Britts may have organized their outfits for the South, thanks to Freydis’ latest fortune, they did not have a way to get there. Their father had originally ordered a handmade carriage from Iceblown Harbour. It was going to be made from golden oak: a very rare and expensive wood that was as light as a feather. It came from a place further south than the South itself. A golden oak carriage would get them out of Nordlor four times quicker than one made from northern wood. But the carriage wouldn’t be ready for months, so the captain had to come up with another idea.
“Are you sure this is the right one?” Oona’s mother asked the shopkeeper. Her husband had sent her to the shop this morning to purchase something very specific. Her seven daughters stood around her, eyeing this “something” suspiciously. “It doesn’t look how I remember.”
“Indeed, it is, Missus Britt,” the man replied. “Freydis Spits’ old carriage – the grandest carriage in the North. I’ve had a lot of offers for this one.”
While the shopkeeper may not have sold Freydis Spits’ old carriage, he had sold everything that used to adorn it. Jewels had been hacked out. Golden whales had been pulled free. Even the old wheels had been sold and replaced with plain wooden ones. And they weren’t golden oak. They looked like cheap birch.
“Oh, Mother,” Ina said, “it looks so common.”
“And old,” added Berit.
“We can’t go south in that,” Trine said.
“It’s embarrassing,” Sissel agreed.
“Can’t we take something else?” begged the twins.
“That would be preferable,” their mother said as she continued to eye the derelict carriage. “Do you have any other ones?” she asked the shopkeeper. “Perhaps a golden one or even silver would do.” If she wanted her daughters to marry southern princes they would have to make a good first impression. They needed something grand for their entrance to the South.
“I’m afraid not,” the shopkeeper said. “Carriages are a rare thing in the North, even the plain wooden ones.”
“Maybe we should just stay here,” Oona said.
“I so wish you wouldn’t talk,” Oona’s mother hissed. “You say such silly things. Don’t mind her, Mister Opsal. Not right in the head. Not like my other daughters.” She smiled fondly at the older ones and then made up her mind. “If we want to go south before winter we will have to take this carriage. But don’t worry, girls. We can fancy it up. By tomorrow it will look even grander than when it was first built.”
Despite their mother’s optimism, none of her daughters looked convinced.
“Now,” Missus Britt said, “you don’t happen to have the polar bears, do you?”
“Ran for the hills nine years ago,” the shopkeeper said. “Right after I sold their chains to a collector in the South. Haven’t been spotted since. I do have two horses though.”
“Horses will have to do,” their mother said with a disappointed sigh. What an entrance they would have made with four polar bears. She bet no one in the South had ever seen one before. “We will, of course, need a driver, preferably one who can read. Could you take us?”
The shopkeeper was about to say no, but then he remembered the previous carriage owner’s prediction. This might be his only chance to escape the impending winter. “I could … for a price,” he said.
When a price had been agreed – for the carriage, horses and driver – Missus Britt made one final request. “Could we have the carriage delivered to our house by noon? We’ll need time to do it up before we leave.”
Oona’s six sisters were even more excited about dressing up the carriage than dressing up themselves. They spent all afternoon gluing jewels to its walls, tying lace to the windows and arranging pillows in the cabin. They even found some gold glitter and dusted it over the wheels. When evening fell, the carriage shone gaudily in the moonlight.
“Oh, doesn’t it look wonderful?” Missus Britt exclaimed when her daughters revealed the newly transformed carriage.
“Delightful,” her husband said dryly. He had left his study to examine the carriage he had purchased for ten golden crowns. He could have bought a small boat for the same price. “I hope you’re going to fix that back wheel.” He pointed to the left one which was hanging off at a very odd angle. “Wouldn’t want to lose one along the way.”
“Oh, forget the wheels,” his wife said, “and look at the lace. We’ll have the finest carriage in all of the South.”
From where she stood beside her father, Oona snorted. She thought the carriage looked even cheaper than when they had bought it that morning.
“Stop being so negative, Oona,” her mother said. “Your sisters have been working on this all afternoon, which is more than I can say for you. What have you been doing today?”
“She was probably playing down by the harbour,” Ina said. “That’s where we found her the other day.”
“Yeah,” Berit agreed. “She was probably down there playing with her stupid stuffed cat.”
“How could I be playing with Gillbert,” Oona said, “when you threw him in the water?”
At the memory, Oona’s sisters laughed. Out of the corner of her eye, Oona saw her mother and father laughing too.
“You really are too old to be playing with toys,” Oona’s mother said.
“I wasn’t playing with toys,” Oona replied. “I was reading.” As soon as the last word left her mouth, Oona wished she could swallow it back up.
“Reading?” her mother said. “Where did you learn to do that?”
“Nowhere,” Oona said quickly. Then, before her mother could ask any more questions, she spun on her heel and ran off down Whalebone Lane.
Oona ran down the glistening lanes of Nordlor. The waves trapped in the sea cobbles crashed beneath her. With only the moon lighting her way, she could not see very far ahead. So, even though her own legs carried her there, Oona was surprised when she reached Nordlor’s shore.
Beneath the milky glow of the sky, Oona stared up at the skeleton of a vast and broken ship. The Gandering Gull looked lonely tonight. The news of an early wi
nter had robbed everyone’s attention, and the village folk had forgotten all about the ship they had waited half a century to return.
Oona had always wanted to board a ship. True, she had imagined that ship would be a bright, loud, bustling vessel heading off for the Great Northern Sea. But with only one day to go before she left for the South, she knew that would never happen. So, a cold, broken and silent ship would have to do.
Oona boarded the Gandering Gull through one of the eight holes that dotted its hull. Despite burning fifty years before, the ship still smelled of smoke, and far off in the distance, like it had to cross half a sea to reach her, Oona could just make out the sound of a fiddle being played and men cheering, “Encore! Encore!”
The sounds of the sea were so real it felt like Oona was sailing deep through the North, not standing on the shore of Nordlor. Even though she was on a black, broken and empty ship, she had never felt so alive. This was the place she was meant to be: on a ship, not inside an old and rickety carriage.
Apart from the memories held in the wood, there were no signs of life on board the old ship. But there were signs that men had once been there. Broken cutlery littered the floor, rags that had once been clothes hung from the walls and, if you looked closely, you could see two empty, rusted candlesticks lying on the floor.
Oona moved through the core of the ship until she reached the room where the men had slept. Bunks carved from wood lined the walls. Time and fire had made them weak and they crumbled at her touch.
The moonlight shining through the broken hull revealed a series of carvings etched above one of the beds. Oona traced her fingers along the images. Each one had a number engraved beneath it. There were drawings of whales being speared, fish being trapped in nets and a boat full of men being hauled on board. Oona realized the numbers were dates – they matched each year the ship went to sea – and the images recorded what happened.
Oona skimmed over the images until she reached the final one. The number beneath it matched the year that the ship disappeared. The final etching was of a fish swimming through the sky instead of the sea. Instead of fins, the fish had wings: great big ones that were wider than the ship itself. Oona recognized the creature. She had seen a drawing of it before in one of her books. It was a nardoo.
The Girl, the Cat and the Navigator Page 4