Whiteland

by Rosie Cranie-Higgs

  Callum taps her lips. ‘Stop worrying.’ It’s more of an order than a consolation. ‘It’s possibly even less productive than your middle-earth-martyr idea, throwing caution to the wind to get to Mordor. You can’t change what they say.’

  ‘But what if they’re telling the truth?’ Kira curls her toes in her boots. ‘I’d be half a huldra. Half a monster. Everything I thought I knew would be a lie.’

  ‘And you’d deal with it.’ Callum squeezes her arm. Her chest shivers. Her belly thrills. ‘Rationalise. Use your weird Kira-logic. Your mum is who she is. Whoever that turns out to be, though, it doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t make you someone else, and certainly not a monster.’

  He shifts. It brings him closer, his rough hand warm through her coat. The night seems to be narrowing, focusing around them. Kira is suddenly aware of her pulse. ‘We’d all be someone else,’ she murmurs. Callum’s expression is shadowed, but she looks away regardless. ‘Me, and Mum, and Romy. It’d be in us to be capable of…’

  Seduction. Murder.

  They’re monsters.

  ‘The same things everyone’s capable of,’ Callum finishes deliberately. ‘Listen.’ He moves his resolute hand to her shoulder. ‘Your mum may have been someone else in the past, but at the end of the day, she’s your mum. Her past is gone, and it’ll never be yours.’ He leans into her, his voice firm, hand firmer. ‘Don’t let it make you hate yourself.’

  He’s moved so close. Kira shuts her eyes. Thank God for the dark; her face is heating, her chest squeezing tight about her lungs, her heart. She can feel his warmth, his breath, the moment coming where you know, you know. This is the least appropriate time. ‘But,’ she tries lamely, ‘what if…’

  Sliding his hand behind her head, Callum kisses her. Not like the first time, but certain, less whimsical, more than Whiteland playing games with their minds. The forest pines are in his hair, on his skin. A hint of cologne still lingers. She moves her hand to his face, along the scratch of his jaw, and pulling him close, closer still, everything starts to drift.

  Until, abruptly, he pulls away. ‘How old are you?’ His voice is low, his breathing less than steady.

  Kira blinks. So is hers. ‘What?’ The question swirls. ‘How old—does it matter?’

  Callum shuts his eyes, puts a hand on her arm, removes it, puts it back. ‘I just realised I have no idea.’ Heavily, he exhales. ‘You could be fifteen and look older. I don’t want to be a creep.’

  The penny spins, slows, and drops. ‘Out of all the things we could be worrying about, that’s the one you choose?’ A smile touches her lips, almost coy. ‘How very noble.’ She hesitates. Normally, it would amuse her to freak him out a bit. Normally…but not now. ‘I’m eighteen.’ She cocks her head. ‘You’ve redeemed your past ungentlemanly actions. That really was quite noble.’

  Callum huffs a low laugh. ‘Thank you. Good.’ He nods, and again. ‘Thank God.’

  ‘One thing.’

  He tenses. The urge to tease is so very strong, but Kira simply smiles. ‘Am I the creep? Are you fifteen?’

  He blinks, blinks, and slowly lifts his well-practiced eyebrows. ‘I sincerely hope not. I’ll have you know, I’ll be twenty-one in—’

  This time, he is silenced. With a breath, Kira pulls him in, and in the cold of the shelter and the echo of the wind, in the dark of the storm, they’re warm.

  Missing a leg and wobbling mournfully, the wooden stool tips.

  Erik closes his eyes. The noise leaps and bounds, and cursing his foot, he braces for the cataclysm.

  Nobody moves. The stool rolls across the floor, taps the rocky fireplace, and settles. Curled up together, his family stays asleep.

  It’s where he should be, too. Erik exhales softly, slowly. He would like to join them, love to join them, but now the wind has stilled and the snow is but a trickle, he must go. If they’ve survived this long, the outsiders have been lucky; any longer without help, however, and Atikur, this forest, this place only equalled by the Tomi desert, might swallow them whole.

  The cave echoes back to silent dark. Slinging his satchel over his shoulder, Erik treads quietly to the door. A last look thrown behind him as he tugs on his boots. With a heavy, shoulder-slumping sigh, he scoops up his snowshoes, pushes through the curtains, and stomps out into the dark.

  It shouldn’t take long, he assures himself, testy but resigned. He won’t be looking to the ends of the earth. If they’ve left Atikur and reached the Zaino river, he has no need to follow. Neither weather nor beasts should bother them, and Sofia will take it from there.

  At the snow bank, he bends and straps the snowshoes to his feet. A brutal shiver makes his back click, and he straightens up with a frown; the weather may have calmed, but a deadly cold has settled. At the very least, the outsiders will be chilled to the bone, if not completely chilled to death. He glances behind him. Should he turn around, fetch something warm? A few extra minutes to the cave and back, for the sake of their survival?

  No. If necessary, he can give them something of his; going back risks waking Iris. It was pure, precious luck that he slipped out in the first place. Her anger at his journey would be monstrous.

  Retrieving a match-bag, a wind protector, and a candle stub, Erik lights the wick, slips it into the glass, and starts to climb. Whoever Kira is, she did not deserve a manhunt. There may be something in the link to Anneliese, but his discernment is his pride, and it isn’t overly convinced. The girl knew little about Whiteland and nothing whatsoever of the Huldra.

  At the top of the slope, Erik pauses for breath, for his tired bones to rest. Huldra can be incredibly, convincingly deceptive; is it possible that everything she said was a lie? He holds his cold hand above the candle, thinking. It’s not out of the question at all for Iris to have been right. On one point, she certainly was right: Callum was helplessly, hopelessly attached. He knows as well as anyone that the Huldra rely on their lure.

  Men trailing them like baby animals, following after the mother. Men clueless until it’s too late.

  Stop. Banishing his doubt, Erik grinds his muscles into a snowshoed-march. Kira was chased in this direction, stumbling, staggering, screaming for her life; whatever her parentage, she’s an outsider. They both are, and they’ll need his help. He shakes his head grimly. Ørenna, she was chased away with fire; he has to help her, in order to make amends for the wrongs of Haavö. He can’t let a blatant horror fester unredeemed.

  Numbing in the bitter air, Erik secures his hat over his ears. It was a horror; the actions of the villagers, his villagers, turn his mouth sour and his thoughts dour, and he glowers deeper than deep. They’re well aware of Iris—to the skies, a few have wished to cast her out—and yet, at the barest hint of threat, they hang on her pronouncements and scurry off to battle. Were it the first time, it would almost be acceptable—there’s more than enough to fear in the forest, and the witch Iris alerted them to would have proved a grisly danger. But the harmless travellers, or the peaceful, daring fossegrim? What community is he a part of that can repeatedly act this way?

  Erik sighs so heavily the candle stutters. Not one he can ever foresee himself agreeing with, even if, for his survival, he remains in their midst. Burying his face in beard and coat, his thoughts turn even dourer. Here he is, the stubborn dissenter, trudging through the snow with a solitary candle. Trying to help two outsiders who may be trouble, may be on a questionable quest, and may have already perished. He sighs again, a low rumble. There’s no burden quite like righteousness.

  He’s wallowing in this, pushing through a cluster of elegant thorns veiled by frost and snow, when a darkness snares his eye. In the shadows of a tree on the other side, almost buried, is a shape.

  A dark, unmoving shape. At once, his grumbling shames him. Erik bows his head. Righteousness should not be a burden; not if it prevents this. Beneath the tree lies a woman.

  Cautiously, he trudges toward her. After each crunch of snow, he listens. No wolves around, drawn by her death. No r
oaming moroaica. No indication that the Kyo lurk to tow her spirit down.

  No sign of Freya. Although, if the huldra was here, he wouldn’t know until he died.

  Which is something he shouldn’t dwell on. Reaching the woman, Erik crouches with the candle. She’s another outsider: her legs are drawn into her chest, her fingers locked dreadfully around them. A long black coat has iced to her body, her short hair glittered with icicles, and as the flame flickers over her, there’s no doubt; with her eyes squeezed shut, her chapped mouth twisted, and her skin blue with frost, she’s frozen.

  She’s dead.

  ‘Ørenna,’ Erik murmurs. The prayer is incomplete, and its full form makes him shudder, but Ørenna is enough. Be safe. Pass on. All of its meanings sift through his head as he creaks to his feet. The woman’s crooked fingertips are black. The blizzard must have caught her.

  As wretched as it is, though, there’s nothing he can do. The flame of his candle is halfway gone, and whether or not he finds Kira and Callum, soon he must head back. With a last, sombre look at the woman, he moves on.

  At least Whiteland, especially at night, is not as vicious as it used to be. The thought is half a distraction. Anneliese’s reign was dangerous. She never reigned in any real sense, but she was unscrupulous, ruthless, and reckless, and she encouraged others, whether Huldra, witch, mountain troll, or marsh-dwelling kelpie, to do the same. They may worry about Freya, but she’s fear; she’s not a nightmare. Anneliese took fifteen men instead of ten. Anneliese was the terror in the dark.

  My, my. Erik grimaces. Between Iris’s maniacal adamance about Anneliese, and his will not to picture the woman in the snow, he can’t help but morosely remember. When the creature got out, it was a shudder, a ripple, a shockwave known but twice before, and in the backs of their minds, the people felt the Whispers. They were swarming, buzzing like angry bees, and nothing—not the beasts, not the inhumane spirits—were exempt from the rushing of their rage. They’re always there, omniscient murmurs like the pressure of a storm, but that night…Erik shakes his head. That night, they were an armada.

  Seeping from the northern ice in a misty, insipid mass, set to pour through Atikur in pursuit of Anneliese. Nothing showed its face in the end, but the incredulous horror was a taste in the air. They were tangible, all-encompassing. All the world could do was hide.

  He may be unaccustomed to scathing cynicism, but Erik’s mouth curls up. Basking above the ice plains, the Whispers threaten, wheedle, and pompously rule, relying on the loyalty of those who hate the outside to keep their dominion. He thinks this sourly, trudging through the snow, through the silhouetted bracken and the close-knit trees. What are they really? Puppet kings? They’re not puppets, but in others lies the power. The muscle, the movement. The Whispers have knowledge, they slip to the edges of the outside, but they’re not physical. There’s only so much you can do with the minds of men and beasts.

  Although maybe that’s it. He’s thought this tens, if not hundreds of times, but he always hopes to reach a different end. The Whispers creep into whoever they need; they listen to homes, villages, mountain walks, and they slither from this world like leeches to take the thoughts of outsiders and bend them. Only the Kyo have similar talents—when they manage to slip beneath the Whispers’ watch—and no one, physical presence or no, can leave.

  Erik’s mouth thins. The only way to leave is through gross sacrifice, and the only way to enter…he hadn’t liked to say, but if Kira isn’t Huldra, either she or Callum must be something. If they weren’t a part of Whiteland, Whiteland wouldn’t have let them in.

  And if it’s Kira, and Iris is right?

  Erik shivers. Ancestry does not beget evil.

  He sets this in the front of his mind and moves on. The lingering wind knocks about his boots. The iced air burns his throat. Even though the moon is elsewhere, there are stars; faraway pinpricks, but stars nonetheless. They’ll be brighter over the Zaino and bigger above the ice plains; perhaps, over the grasslands, they shine with the moon. One day, he’ll travel beyond the river people’s hub. One day, he’ll take his girls, and one day, they’ll see it.

  Away with the luminaries, he almost misses the light. Warily, Erik stops, angling his head. Deep in a snow bank and crisscrossed by branches, flames lick quiet and faint. A fire?

  Pushing guardedly through the bushes, Erik studies the bank. Above his head, the spirits click, the ones that watch in the night. The protectors. Which means…

  …The outsiders. As he watches, hopeful and statuesque, the branches move aside. ‘Who’s there?’ a low voice calls. ‘If you don’t come out, I’m going back to bed.’

  Erik huffs a gruff laugh. ‘Fine way to scare off intruders.’

  He steps forward, lifting the sputtering candle. Crouched in the opening, Callum jerks back.

  ‘Calm down.’ Erik raises his other hand, too. ‘You know me. I saved you and your girl from the mist. You were chased from my village. Remember?’ He brings the candle closer to his face. Callum nods, and he blows it out.

  Callum watches the wick fizzle and still.

  ‘It has to last the way back,’ Erik says. ‘I didn’t want to wake anyone by rummaging to find more.’

  With another slow nod, Callum moves toward him, away from the glowing hollow. As long as she’s not been dropped in a dream, Kira might as well stay asleep. She needs it.

  ‘How will you get back?’ he asks, pulling his hoodie sleeves down. The hollow was cosy and toasted, like a world within the world. Stepping outside is a stark reminder that the world they’re in is cold. ‘We can’t seem to go anywhere without being taken in circles and separated. Kira couldn’t get away from your village no matter how much she ran straight, and when I tried searching for her, I kept coming back to the same patch of snow. This patch, specifically.’ He stamps the ground. He came to hate its guts. ‘How do you get where you’re trying to go?’

  Erik strokes the needles of a low-hanging branch. ‘You’re outsiders,’ he says. ‘You don’t know how to live here. There are ways in which we manipulate the land.’ He lets the tree go. ‘If I touch this trunk and go left’—he nudges its roots with a hide-wrapped boot laced to a splintered snowshoe—‘I’ll be on my way to the Atikur fossegrim’s island. If I do the same and go right, I may find myself near to Haavö, my village, or somewhere close to the desert. This is why I believe you’re being helped.’ Erik’s craggy face turns to the hollow. ‘You and Kira found each other, when you could have ended up with the Huldra, and she in a myrling’s path.’

  Words. So many unknown words, too many to tackle at once. Callum settles for what he can ten-percent fathom. ‘There was a shadow,’ he hedges. Erik may not have joined the mob, but he could still lead them here. ‘Or something I saw the shadow of. And a…’ He digs his hands in his kangaroo pouch. Hansel-and-Gretel-witch-in-a-cloak? ‘Woman.’ His mouth quirks. ‘Although I don’t know if you’d call saying child and vanishing “help.”’

  ‘You would, believe me.’ Erik laughs softly. ‘I imagine she was a spirit, the same as your shadow.’ His rugged expression turns thoughtful. ‘Was that all she said?’

  Callum opens his mouth to say yes before the scene replays in his mind. The woman appearing in the space of a blink. Kira scraping her chair back and crashing to the floor. Then, there were two words spoken. Child and…

  ‘Actually, no.’ Callum thins his eyes at the snow. This never helps anyone remember things, but hey, they can but try. ‘She said…’ He scours his mind. One second. Two. Five. ‘I don’t know.’ He shakes his head and gives up. ‘Something like Odin, which would have been cool, but it 100 percent was not.’

  Erik’s face is still thoughtful. Slowly, his gaze travels to the hollow and back to Callum. ‘Ørenna?’

  Callum sifts through the scene in his mind. ‘Maybe? Honestly, I don’t know. We were too’—the word scared almost comes out, but there’s no way he’s admitting to that—‘surprised.’

  Erik bows his head. ‘Of course.’ He
considers the forest floor in a way that says he’s considering his words, too. ‘That’s good, though. Very good.’

  A branch drops snow to the ground with a whumpf. Callum starts. ‘Good?’ He looks back to Erik, more rattled than he’d like. It’s snow. It’s just snow. ‘On the outside, spirits are the opposite of good, and they’re really not meant to talk.’

  Not that he ever thought they existed. Maybe, out there, they don’t.

  ‘I’m sure.’ Erik bows his head. ‘But whoever your spirit was, she’s protecting you. If she wasn’t, she wouldn’t have said Ørenna, and if she is, you can’t be a threat.’

  Presumably this makes sense to someone.

  ‘If you were,’ Erik continues, ‘the mist would not attack you. In quiet ways, with signs we miss, there are those who help the humans they were. You’ve been recognised as more akin to us than anything else.’

  He glances at the hollow. Callum can almost hear his mind, his wife doubting Kira: Huldra. ‘We’re not akin to humans,’ he says. A breeze drifts around him. It brings powder, the scent of snow, their fire’s syrupy smoulder. He jigs on the balls of his feet with a shiver. ‘We are humans.’

  Huldra.

  Stop.

  Erik inclines his chin. ‘Indeed. Which reminds me.’ The corners of his lips pinch. ‘Did you know there was another outsider here?’

  Callum’s intestines twist. Lena. They considered tracking her down before deciding it wouldn’t end well; if she followed them here, and puts people to sleep, she may well knock them out and drag them home by their toes.

  ‘A woman?’ he asks. ‘Short black hair?’ Erik’s face is sombre, gruffly concerned. Callum’s intestines twist out of place. ‘Really thin? Probably a long black coat?’

  Erik is nodding. His face winces. Callum narrows his eyes. ‘What about her?’