Mathilde reached out and grasped the shutters. She held onto the wood as tight as her old hands would let her and pulled them closed. But the moment she let go, they swung back open. It used to be an annoyance, being woken by the shutters, but now it was a danger.
The cold of winter had made the villagers hungrier than usual, and they had eaten through most of their supplies. The elders had ordered more food be brought in from the surrounding towns and villages. But snowstorms, darkness and winds so strong they blew grown horses away stopped the supplies from reaching them.
Now, throughout Nordlor people were climbing into houses at night and stealing what little food was kept inside. Mister Bjorkman’s tower had been robbed sixteen times. The thieves only stopped when there was no food – no whale meat or reindeer jerky – left to steal. In every lane, street and passage people were locking doors that had never been locked before and bolting windows that had, for over a century, been left open.
The village wasn’t only running low on food. It was running low on light, blankets and clothes. It was even running low on wood. Things were getting so desperate that instead of being built back up into something new, the Gandering Gull had been ripped apart and shared amongst the villagers for firewood. The already burned wood had been burned again and now all that remained was ash. If the Plucky Leopard didn’t return with supplies soon, it wouldn’t just be thieves sneaking into houses at night. Death would slink inside too.
Unable to close the shutters, Mathilde looked beyond them instead. The lane outside was silent and still. Above the rooftops, she glimpsed the river that led north. She wondered how far away Haroyld was now and what he was doing. She imagined he was smoking his pipe somewhere – Arctic strawberry flavour – and looking up at the stars.
Mathilde was about to look up at the stars too, when her eyes caught sight of something in the water. A feeling of deep fear washed over her. Ice crystals had formed on the surface of the river. Soon, the water would freeze over and even Haroyld with his stars and maps would not be able to find a path back.
FREYDIS’ FINAL PREDICTION
After Oona freed the nardoo it did not come back. The Northern sky grew even darker. Winter closed in. Blackness filled the air and the chunks of ice that loomed around the Plucky Leopard rose even higher than the nardoo itself.
“I doubt it even was a nardoo,” one of the men muttered as they continued to plough a course north. “Probably just a deformed whale, like those elks born with two heads.”
“And it didn’t even fly,” whined another. “I heard they’re meant to fly.”
“Well,” said a third, “I would have preferred to catch a deformed whale rather than no whale at all. Now everyone in the village will starve, and men will start eating each other in the streets. That’s what happened in Islo when the Bobbing Tarsk failed to bring in a whale.”
“Don’t be so dramatic,” Olf said. “We’ve caught enough fish to feed the village. Nordlor can survive one winter without a whale.”
“Let’s not talk about that yet,” the captain snapped. He had taken a break from steering the ship and had come to hear what his men were talking about. “Not when we’re still heading north.” Besides, he thought to himself, this wasn’t about feeding the village. This was about him. Imagine bringing back fish in lieu of a whale. The shame. The embarrassment. That might do for other captains – for lesser captains – but it wouldn’t do for Captain Britt.
“About that, Captain,” one of the men said cautiously. “When will we, um, be heading south?”
“Soon,” the captain grumbled.
“How soon?” asked another of his men. “I don’t want us to return without a whale, only, it’s getting awfully dark up here.”
“And cold,” said another. “Cold even for the North.”
“And the ice,” Olf added. “It’s getting awful big, Captain. Big enough to sink a ship.”
The captain growled and stared at his men. He wanted to tell them off for being weak: gutless as a gutted fish. But, truth was, they were right. Winter settled upon them swiftly, and the further north they travelled the more dangerous the season became.
“All right,” he said reluctantly. “We will sail on for three more days. If we don’t spot a whale by then we will turn back to Nordlor. Captain’s promise.”
“The leopard seal leads us north,” Oona whispered as she stared up at the sky. Barnacles was below deck with Haroyld. Six days had passed since the navigator dived into the sea to save her, and he had not awoken. Now, it was up to Oona to guide the ship forward.
“The bear shows us to the east,” Oona said. It was three hours into the day, but the sky remained dark. “The owl shows us to the west.” She looked up at the owl-shaped constellation twinkling in the dark day sky. “And if you follow the nardoo, why, it will take you all the way home.”
Oona’s voice cracked when she said the final sentence: the same sentence Haroyld had said to her not long after she had been discovered on board. For the last three nights, the nardoo had been missing from the sky. While she had told the men that she knew what she was doing, secretly she had no idea. She may have had her own map, but she was not a navigator. Not a proper one. Only Haroyld was one of them, and if he didn’t wake up Oona had a feeling the Plucky Leopard would never find its way home.
While Oona tried her best to guide the Plucky Leopard through the Icelands, her six sisters prepared for their wedding. Forget hand-me-downs from Lady Summer: Prince Turnip had paid for the finest seamstress in the South to make them each a custom wedding dress. He’d also organized for a shoemaker to craft six pairs of diamond-encrusted slippers for them to wear as they walked down the aisle. As the wedding neared, only one thing was missing.
“I so wish Father could be here,” Ina said as she, her sisters and their mother completed the final dress fitting.
“I hope he’s OK,” Berit said. It had been four months since he waved them goodbye from the gates of Nordlor. A lot could have happened in that time.
“I’m sure he’s fine,” their mother said. “He’d have caught a whale by now. He’s probably hauling it into the village as we speak.”
Only one of the Britt sisters looked unhappy as she tried on her wedding dress. For weeks, Hermann had been warning Trine about the northern wing. Trine had also tried warning her mother and her sisters, but they had laughed her off and said she was being silly. Ina had even suggested she had sea-squelch for brains, just like their youngest sister.
Though Ina had meant this as an insult, Trine had taken it as inspiration. She had asked herself, “What would Oona do if she were in my shoes?” It hadn’t taken long for Trine to work it out. Oona would say, “Forget the money! Forget the crown! Forget getting married!” Then, she would have kicked off the silly southern shoes and set out on an adventure of her own.
Trine wasn’t bold enough or brave enough to do that. But she did feel bold and brave enough to set out on an adventure with someone else. And she knew just who that someone else might be.
*
Several hundred miles away, Freydis Spits stood in Nordlor’s main square. Snow drifted down around her, and the wind worked itself into a gale. Three months had passed since she predicted winter would come early and now it was well and truly here. Even the sun had fled to escape it. Now, instead of bright light streaming down from the sky, fires fuelled by all sorts of items – cloth and wood and even seashells – burned around the main square.
Despite the weather and darkness, a large crowd had gathered for the weekly markets, not that there was much to buy. But Freydis wasn’t there to go shopping. She was there to make an investment: an investment in her future. She had discovered a shell just that morning which held a grand prediction. And, if it turned out to be true, her reputation in the North would be restored. She would, once again, be able to charge for her fortunes. She would, once again, be rich!
“People of Nordlor!” Freydis cried from the centre of the village’s main square. “A
nd people from far beyond,” she added with a dramatic flair and a wink to Lady Summer. “Gather around to hear a grave prediction. A prediction – I promise – that will not be proven wrong. Here, here,” she whispered. “Come in closer,” she hissed as the curious crowd moved in. “I have a very special fortune to tell. A free prediction that must be heard.”
At the word “free” the crowd suddenly grew. Every person who had come to the markets was now ready to hear what the once famed Freydis Spits had to say.
“I see death!” Freydis yelled with a tremble on her lips. “Death in the Northern Sea.”
From where she stood at the back of the crowd, Mathilde Nordstrom let out a sharp cry. Surely Freydis didn’t mean Haroyld.
Around Mathilde, the rest of the crowd gasped and reeled back with horror. While Freydis’ prediction about an early winter hadn’t come true, her prediction about a Great Winter had. Now, their trust in the fortune teller had risen. Freydis’ belief in herself was also inflating. The prediction about the captain’s son had been a blip – a slight blemish – a mere mistake. But now, piece by piece, shell by shell, her predictions were coming true once more. And this one was a killer.
“Everyone – dead!” Freydis yelled even louder than before. Her voice wailed through the village and echoed up into the hills. It made mice flee from their burrows, bears tremble in their winter caves and owls take flight into the charcoal sky. “Everyone on board the Plucky Leopard will drown and the ship will sink to the bottom of the sea. That’s right,” Freydis said to a boy whimpering beside her leg. His father was a member of the crew. “There will be nothing left to make the ship into something new. There’ll be no Sunken Leopard. No Dead Leopard. No Sinking Seal. The ship will go down and not a plank of its wood, or a member of its crew, will ever be found.”
“WHALE!”
“The air is changing,” Oona said to Barnacles the cat. “We must be getting very far north now.” Though her map lay open before her, Oona had no idea where upon it they currently were. Haroyld had taught her how to use the stars for direction, but he had not shown her how to calculate distance. “It smells different.” Oona sniffed the night air. “Like there are no smells left any more.”
Barnacles raised his head towards the sky and twitched his whiskers. Then, he twitched his nose. He meowed at Oona – the loudest meow she had ever heard – and then he meowed again.
“What is it, Barnacles?” Oona said. He was trying to tell her something, but she had no idea what.
Barnacles left Oona’s side and paced up and down the deck. A few times he jumped on to the rail and pawed at the sky. Eventually, after doing this same thing six times, he returned to Oona and let out a long, mournful cry.
“I know,” Oona said. She leant down and tried to pat Barnacles, but the cat jumped away. He liked her a lot more now, but he still wouldn’t let her touch him. “I miss Haroyld too. I hope he wakes up soon.”
For two days the men of the Plucky Leopard hunted for a whale without success. Then, on the third day, a spout of water shot out of the sea.
“There she blows!” a man cried from the ship’s tallest mast. He had seen a splash of white as the water crashed back into the ocean. “Whale!” he screamed. “Whale on the starboard side!”
Within seconds of the sighting, the captain changed course. The Plucky Leopard turned east. The wind was on their side, and the ship ploughed gamely after the beast.
The whale fled from the ship full of cold and tired men. With lanterns tied to the bow, the ship kept chase. The flames flickered across the water below, lighting the way ahead.
As the Plucky Leopard drew close, the men prepared the whaleboats.
“Not long now, boys!” the captain cried joyfully into the night. “Looks like we’ll be taking a whale home after all.”
While the captain yelled at his men, Barnacles grabbed the golden steering wheel and turned it sharply to the right. A second later, the captain’s boot kicked him in the back and sent him sprawling across the deck.
“Be off with you, stupid cat!” the captain yelled. His eyes flared with rage. “No one touches my wheel.”
Barnacles got back on his paws and pounced at the wheel for a second time. The captain grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and threw him to the ground. Just before the captain gave him a kick strong enough to send him right over the rail, Barnacles scampered away.
Stowaways, rotten fish and cold water! Barnacles cursed to himself. He could play a fiddle, read a crew list and scale the tallest mast on his ship in under five seconds, but he could not speak a word of human. This had hardly troubled him before. But now this skill was important. This was an emergency. There was an iceberg up ahead: he and the girl had smelled it. And now his ship, his ninth and final ship, was heading straight towards it.
As soon as the whale was sighted, the captain ordered Oona below deck. He did not want her to ruin another hunt. Instead of going to the storeroom, Oona went to the navigator’s cabin. She sat down beside Haroyld and rolled out his new map.
“I’ve almost finished,” Oona said to Haroyld. Two weeks had passed since he dived into the sea and he had yet to stir. But his skin was no longer blue and he was breathing freely. Oona thought he would wake soon and then he could guide them home. “I’ve marked all the places that you marked on mine, and I’ve even drawn a tavern to mark Nordlor.”
Oona was putting more ink on the map when a shudder ripped through the ship. To Oona, it felt like the heart of the Plucky Leopard was being torn out and hurled into the sea. She jumped off the floor and ran over to the porthole.
Oona looked outside. Instead of seeing the ocean, she saw a wall of ice.
“ABANDON SHIP!”
When Oona reached the deck, chunks of ice rained down around her. As she had raced up the stairs, a man had raced below to check on the damage. He returned with bad news.
“There are holes,” he said to the captain. “At least ten. All through the hull. Each one is bigger than the breadth of a man.”
The captain ordered his men to make a line that led from the ship’s hull to the deck. Then, using buckets, they scooped the icy water out. But no matter how quickly they worked, more water flooded in. The Plucky Leopard sank lower into the sea.
The captain watched the water rise and realized what they had to do.
“Abandon ship!” he screamed. “Take to the whaleboats!” he cried across the night. And then, like the northern saying went, he raced towards the nearest whaleboat and was the first to abandon his ship.
While the men of the Plucky Leopard raced to abandon ship, Oona raced back below deck.
“Haroyld,” Oona said. “Haroyld, you have to wake up.”
Oona pulled on the navigator’s arm, but he did not move.
“Please, Haroyld,” she begged as tears rolled down her face. “I’m too small to carry you.”
By now the water had escaped the ship’s hull and was swirling around Oona’s feet. It felt like she was standing on the sea cobbles back home, only this water was rising and there was no stone to hold it back.
The water had risen to Oona’s knees when the door to the navigator’s cabin swung open. Oona wondered which of the men had come down to help. When she turned around she realized that none of them had.
“Barnacles?” Oona said. “What are you doing here?”
To avoid the rising water, the cat pounced on to the navigator’s trunk and then on to his bed. He was carrying his fiddle. At first Oona thought he was going to play a song as the ship went down, but instead of plucking the strings he raised the instrument above his shoulders and slammed it on to the navigator’s head.
The wood shattered and splintered. Barnacles’ prized fiddle snapped in two. Then, the navigator moaned and opened his eyes.
“Oona,” he said. “You’re alive.” He smiled weakly and slowly sat himself up in bed. Then, he noticed the water.
“Hurry, Haroyld.” Oona tugged on the navigator’s arm. “We have to get out of he
re. The ship is sinking.”
The water had risen to Oona’s waist, and the navigator’s belongings floated on top.
Oona helped Haroyld out of bed. Barnacles, not wanting to get wet, jumped on to the navigator’s shoulder. Then, they pushed their way over to the door and waded towards the stairs. When they stepped out on to the deck, they looked towards the spot where the whaleboats were kept.
Oona’s heart sank. All four of the whaleboats were gone. In their panic to escape the sinking ship, the men of the Plucky Leopard had fled and left them there to drown.
THE FLYING LEOPARD
“Come back,” Oona screamed into the night. “Come back and save us!” she bellowed across the sea. The boats were so close Oona could see the men huddled inside. But instead of turning and coming back towards them, the four whaleboats continued to drift away. Soon, they were just shadows and then memories in the night.
“Perhaps they did not hear us,” Haroyld said softly. Though he and Oona knew their words had carried far.
The stars in the sky grew brighter as the ship sank lower into the sea. Water flooded out from below the deck and began to flood the deck itself. Though Haroyld knew the way home, the ship was too broken to take them there.
As the icy water closed in, the girl, the cat and the navigator huddled together. All was silent until the navigator spoke.
“Did you know,” Haroyld said, “that I used to have a daughter?”
Oona shook her head.
“Her name was Nora. She died before she even got the chance to live. But if she had lived, I would have liked her to be just like you.”
“Like me?” Oona said. “But why?”
“Because you’re brave, Oona: brave enough to stand up to your father and sneak aboard this ship. And you’re kind: kind enough to dive into the sea and save a man who would not risk his own life to save you. And you’ve got the North in your blood. Why, I think you’re splendid, Oona. Splendid in every way. And I couldn’t be prouder, not even if you were my own daughter.”
The Girl, the Cat and the Navigator Page 13