by Eowyn Ivey
The secret clung to Jack in the scent of black woodsmoke and melting snow. At night, Mabel pressed her face into his beard and touched his hair with her fingers.
“What have you been burning?”
“Just some of those stump rows from last summer. Good weather to burn. Not too windy or dry.”
“Yes. I suppose so.” She didn’t seem altogether convinced.
The ground was taking longer to thaw than he had predicted. He dragged the dead man out from under the tree and cut it down. Then he cut up the wood where it lay, and built a fire from its tinder-dry branches. The girl watched the tree burn. She stood well back and the flames flickered in her eyes. Jack asked her if she could tend the fire while he was gone, but she shook her head. So when the short day ended and night fell, he piled the wood as high as he dared and then climbed down the mountain. Behind him, the fire crackled and popped and flamed in the night.
The next day he scraped at the frozen earth beneath the smoldering wood, digging as far down as he could with a shovel. A December grave was hard-earned in this place, but it would come. He left the man beneath a tarp, far from the fire. It was a gruesome thought, but he didn’t want the body to thaw. It was keeping well frozen.
On the third day, Jack trudged home covered with soot and weary to the bone. Mabel was waiting.
“George came by,” she said. “I told him you were out in the new field, burning stumps.”
“Oh?”
“He said you weren’t out there. He couldn’t find you.”
“Hmm.” He didn’t look into her face.
She took hold of his forearm and squeezed gently. “What is it? Where have you been?”
“Nothing. I’ve just been working. George must have missed me somehow.”
The next morning Jack returned to dig in the softening earth and build the flames back up. He was drenched in sweat and coated in dirt and charcoal from the half-burned logs. The girl was nowhere to be seen, but at times Jack felt something watching him from the trees and wondered if it was the girl or the red fox he had seen slip now and then between snow-covered boulders.
By midafternoon the pit seemed deep enough to bury a man. Jack scraped the last coals out of the hole and then leaned on the shovel, his cheek resting on his hand. This wasn’t the first grave he’d dug alone. He thought back to a small grave, a tiny lifeless body, not much bigger than a man’s heart.
Jack called for the child. It’s time, he said. Time to put your papa to rest.
She appeared from behind one of the spruce trees.
Is it gone? she asked.
You mean the fire? Yes, it’s gone.
There was no coffin. He didn’t have the lumber to build one and didn’t want to attract too much attention by inquiring in town. The tarp would have to do. Jack shoved and pulled at the canvas until it broke free of ice, and then he dragged the body across the snow to the grave.
Have you said your goodbyes?
The girl nodded. Jack felt ill. It could have just been the long day of sweating and freezing and no stomach even for lunch. But it didn’t seem right, burying a man without notifying the authorities or signing some piece of paper or at least having a man of the cloth read something from the Bible. He didn’t see a way out. The worst that could happen to this child, besides her father dying in front of her, would be for the authorities to get involved. She’d be shipped off to some orphanage far from these mountains. She seemed to him both powerful and delicate, like a wild thing that thrives in its place but withers when stolen away.
Without another man to help him lower it slowly, Jack shoved the tarp-wrapped body into the hole, where it fell with an ungodly thump.
Shall I cover him up then? he asked.
The girl nodded.
He began shoveling in dirt and black, dead coals. He wondered if he had the strength to finish, but he kept at it, shovelful after shovelful, the girl silent behind him. Occasionally he stamped his feet on the dirt to settle it and the girl joined him, hopping up and down on the grave, her small face frowning, her marten-fur hat hanging down her back by strings tied at her neck.
So it’s done, then, Jack said.
He scraped a few last piles of dirt over the grave.
The girl came to Jack’s side. She closed her eyes, then flung her arms into the air. Snowflakes lighter than feathers scattered across the grave. It was more snow than a child could possibly hold in her arms, and it filtered down as if from the clear sky above. Jack was silent until the last flakes settled.
When he did speak, his voice was hoarse from the smoke.
In the spring, he said, we can put some pretty rocks here, maybe plant flowers.
The girl nodded and then wrapped her arms around his waist, pressed her face into his coat. Jack stood motionless for a moment, awkward with his arms at his sides, and then he slowly reached around her and patted her softly on the back, smoothed her hair with his rough hand.
There, there. All right. It’s going to be all right. It’s done now.
Then one morning, when the last of the snow had melted, she came to the old couple and kissed them both.
“I must leave you now,” she said.
“Why?” they cried.
“I am a child of the snow. I must go where it is cold.”
“No! No!” they cried. “You cannot go!”
They held her close, and a few drops of snow fell to the floor. Quickly she slipped from their arms and ran out the door.
“Come back!” they called.
“Come back to us!”
—The Snow Child, retold by Freya Littledale
CHAPTER 14
It was unexpected, to look forward to each day. When Mabel woke in the mornings, happy anticipation washed over her and for a moment she would not know its cause. Was this day special for some reason? A birthday? A holiday? Was something planned? Then she would remember—the child might visit.
Mabel was often at the window, but it wasn’t with the melancholy weariness of the previous winter. Now she watched with excitement and hope that the little girl in the fur hat and leather moccasins would appear from the woods. The December days had a certain luminosity and sparkle, like frost on bare branches, alight in the morning just before it melts.
Mabel tempered herself. She imagined running to the girl when she appeared at the edge of the trees and throwing her arms around her, spinning her in circles. But she didn’t. She waited patiently in the cabin and pretended not to notice her arrival. When the child came indoors, Mabel did not scrub her clean, brush the leaves and lichen from her hair, wash her clothes, and dress her anew. It was true—she sometimes pictured the child wearing a lovely ruffled dress and pretty bows in her hair. Sometimes she even daydreamed about inviting Esther over for tea to show off the girl as if she were her own.
She did none of these things. They were silly fancies that had more to do with her own romantic ideas of childhood than with this mysterious girl. The only real desire she had, once she stripped away the vain and the frivolous, was to touch the child, to stroke the girl’s cheek, to hold her close and deeply breathe in her scent of mountain air. But she contented herself with the child’s smiles, and each morning she watched at the window, hoping this day she would come.
Mabel had not been able to find a pattern in the visits. The child came every other evening for a week or so, but then for two or three days she wouldn’t appear. One morning she came and stayed with Mabel in the kitchen instead of following Jack around the barn. She watched Mabel mix bread dough, and it was as if a songbird had landed on a bedroom windowsill. Mabel did not want to frighten her away by moving too abruptly, so she emulated Jack’s quiet, accepting manner. She spoke softly to the girl. She described how you had to dust the dough in flour and knead it again and again until it was right in the hands, even and elastic. She told the child that Jack’s aunt had taught her how to bake bread, that she had been astounded a woman could be grown and married and not know how.
That evenin
g, the girl stayed for dinner. Jack came in from the barn and Mabel and the child joined him at the table. The girl bowed her head before he had even begun saying the blessing, and Jack and Mabel’s eyes met. She had grown accustomed to their ways.
Jack seemed in an uncommonly good mood, making jokes and talking about his day’s work as they passed the food around the table. At one point, he turned to ask her to hand him the salt. She was focused on her own plate and didn’t notice. Jack cleared his throat, then tapped lightly on the table.
This is getting silly, he announced.
The child startled. He quieted his tone.
We must call you something. Will it be “girl” forever?
The child was silent. Jack reached over her for the salt, apparently giving up on getting a name from her. Mabel waited, but Jack went back to eating.
Faina, the girl whispered.
What’s that, child? Mabel asked.
My name. It’s Faina.
Will you say it again, more slowly?
Fah-EE-nah.
Each syllable a quiet whisper. Mabel at first could make no sense of the foreign sounds, so many vowels without their consonants, but then she heard a gesture toward words like “far” and “tree” and a breath of air at the end, sounds that were indeed this little girl sitting at their table. Faina.
What does it mean? Mabel asked.
The girl bit her lower lip and frowned.
You must see it, to know.
Then her face brightened.
But I’ll show you. Someday I’ll show you what it means.
Faina. It is a lovely name.
Well there, Jack said. That simplifies things, doesn’t it?
That night, after the child left, they said her name again and again. It began to roll easily off their tongues, and Mabel liked the way it felt in her mouth, the way it whispered in her ear—Did you see how Faina bowed her head at dinner? Isn’t Faina a beautiful child? What will Faina bring next time she visits? They were like children pretending to be mother and father, and Mabel was happy.
Dawn broke silver over the snowdrifts and spruce trees, and Mabel was at the kitchen table trying to sketch the birch basket the girl had brought them. She had it propped against her wooden recipe box so that it tipped toward her, and she tried to remember how it had looked full of wild berries. It had been too long since she had drawn, and the pencil was awkward in her hands, the shading and angles of the drawing all wrong. Frustrated, she put a hand to the back of her neck and stretched.
At the sight of the girl peeking in the window, Mabel startled, but then smiled and raised her hand in greeting. When the child waved back, affection surged through her.
Faina, child. Come in, come in.
The child brought the smell of snow in with her, and the air in the cabin cooled and brightened. Mabel unwrapped the scarf from her neck, took her mittens, fur hat, and the wool coat. The child let her do this, and Mabel hugged the clothes to her breast, felt the chill of winter, the coarse wool, and the silky brown fur. She draped the scarf over the back of her hand and marveled that her sister’s dewdrop stitch would adorn this little girl.
What were you doing?
The child stood at the table with one of the pencils in her hand.
I was drawing, Mabel said. Would you like to see?
She set the child’s outdoor clothing on a chair and left the door cracked open, so a draft could move through the cabin and cool the girl. Then she pulled a chair out for her and sat beside her.
This is my sketchpad. And these are my pencils. I wanted to draw a picture of the basket you gave us. See?
Mabel held up the drawing.
Oh, the child said.
It’s not very good, is it? I’m afraid I’ve lost any skill I might have had.
I think it is very nice.
The child skimmed her fingers across the paper surface and rounded her lips in wonder.
What else can you draw? she asked.
Mabel shrugged.
Anything I set my mind to, I suppose. Although it won’t necessarily look the way it ought.
Could you draw a picture of me?
Yes. Oh, yes. But I must warn you, I’ve never been very good at portraits.
Mabel put the child’s chair near the window so the winter light shone on the side of her face and lit up her blond hair. For the next hour, Mabel glanced from sketch paper to child and back again, and waited for the girl to protest, but she never complained or moved. She was stoic, her chin slightly raised, her gaze steady.
With each stroke of the pencil, it was as if Mabel had been granted her wish, as if she held the child in her arms, caressed her cheek, stroked her hair. She drew the gentle curve of the child’s cheekbones, the peaks of her small lips, the inquisitive arch of her blond eyebrows. Self-contained, wary and brave, innocent and knowing… something in the turn of her head, the tilt of her eyes, hinted at a wildness Mabel wanted to capture, too. All these details she took in and memorized.
Would you like to see?
Is it finished?
Mabel smiled.
As well as I can for today.
She turned the sketchpad toward the child, not knowing what reaction to expect.
The child took in a breath, then clasped her hands in delight.
Do you like it?
Oh, yes! Is that me? Is that what I look like?
Have you never seen yourself, child?
The girl shook her head.
Never? Not in a mirror? Well, I have just the thing. Much better than any drawing I can manage.
Mabel went to the bedroom and came back with a hand mirror.
Do you know what this is? It’s a little glass, and you can see yourself in it.
The child shrugged her small shoulders.
There, do you see? That’s you.
The girl peered into the mirror, her eyes wide and her face somber. She reached out and touched the shining surface with one fingertip, then touched her own hair, her face. She smiled, turned her head side to side, brushed her hair away from her brow, all the while watching in the mirror.
Would you like to have the picture I drew of you?
Faina smiled and nodded.
Mabel folded the portrait until it was a square small enough to fit in the child’s pocket.
When the little girl was gone and dinner finished, Mabel knitted by the woodstove. Outside, the wind tore down the river valley, and she thought she could hear another sound, too. A mournful baying.
“Is that the wind, Jack?”
He stood at the window, looking out into the blackness.
“Nope. I think it’s those wolves upriver. I heard howling the other night, too.”
“Would you stoke up the fire? I feel I’ve caught a chill.”
She watched him put birch logs to the fire, the flames catching on the papery bark and flickering light against the cabin walls. Then he went to the window and looked for some time out into the night, the way she always did.
“Is she safe?” Mabel asked. “That wind’s blowing so savagely. And the wolves.”
“I expect she’s all right.”
They stayed up unusually late. Jack went outside several times to get more wood, despite the stack of logs just inside the door, and Mabel continued to knit, though her hands were tired and her eyes burned. Finally they could stay awake no longer and crawled into their bed together. They fell asleep to the sound of the wind blowing down the valley.
CHAPTER 15
It was mid-February when a parcel addressed to Mabel arrived, wrapped in brown paper and delivered via train to Alpine. Jack brought it from town, along with a few supplies bought with the last of their credit at the general store.
Mabel waited until he went back outside before she sat at the table to open it. Could this be it at long last? It seemed ages ago that she had written her sister to ask about the book. For several weeks she had been hopeful, but when it hadn’t come she assumed either her sister couldn’t find it or was
not interested in the query.
She was tempted to tear open the package but felt the need to be calm and collected. She heated a kettle of water and steeped a cup of tea. When it was ready, she sat at the table and unknotted the packing twine and carefully unfolded the paper. Inside were two separately wrapped packages. The larger one looked distinctly like a book, but Mabel chose to open the smaller first. It contained several fine drawing pencils as well as sticks of charcoal. She turned to the larger package and unfolded the brown paper slowly.
The book was just as she had remembered it—oversized and perfectly square, a shape unlike any children’s book she had ever seen. It was bound in blue morocco leather. An exquisite snowflake design was embossed in silver on the front cover, and the same silver gilding decorated the spine. She placed the book flat on the table in front of her and opened it. “Snegurochka, 1857” was written lightly in pencil in the upper corner of the blue marbled endpaper. “The Snow Maiden.” It was her father’s neat writing. He had collected many books on his travels, and some he brought back especially for her. He kept them on a shelf in his study, but whenever she wanted to look through them, he would pull them down and sit her on his lap while he turned the pages.
With the book in front of her, Mabel could have been back in her father’s study with its scent of pipe tobacco and old books. She turned the first page. On the left was a full-color plate overlaid with a sheet of translucent paper, on the other the story, written in blocky, illegible letters. It was in Russian! How could she have forgotten? Maybe she had never noticed. Although this had been one of her favorite childhood books, she realized now that she had never actually read it. Her father had told her the story as she looked at the illustrations. Now she wondered whether her father had known the words or had invented the story based on the pictures.
It had been many years since her father had died, but now she recalled his voice, melodic and rumbling.
“There once was an old man and woman who loved each other very much and were content with their lot in life except for one great sadness—they had no children of their own.”