Ice

by Sarah Beth Durst

  In the distance, she heard a crashing.

  “No, no, no,” the aspen cried. “Danger! You must stop!” Her voice rose, approaching a shriek. “Stop!”

  Cassie heard the sound of a waterfall. Suddenly, she saw it through the spruces: the river! Blue, beautiful, and wild, it rushed through the forest.

  Branches slapped her. She shielded her face as she ran. Up ahead, the stream narrowed between boulders, spilled through them, and tumbled down ten feet into the stormy water below. Squatting on the boulders, Father Forest waited for her.

  Cassie lowered her head like a bull. Father Forest was ten feet ahead of her. She barreled into the gap. As if scolding a toddler, he said, “No, Cassie, no. You’ll hurt yourself. You’ll hurt your baby.”

  Five feet ahead of her.

  He held out his gnarled hand. “You must trust me. I promise you will be safe with me. I’ll take care of you. I’ll raise your child like my own.”

  Inches ahead of her.

  “Think of your baby, its future,” he said. “That’s a good girl, take my hand. Come home with me.”

  She was there. “Like hell I will,” she cried, and ducked under his hand and slid down the rock face. Scrambling, the aspen tried to stop her. “No, little mother!” Her fingers scratched Cassie’s arm like claws.

  Cassie spilled over the rocks. She hit the water feet first. Her bare feet slammed down on the sharp rocks of the river floor, and she doubled over, hissing. The stream crashed down onto her back. She heard the aspen scream.

  Cassie straightened, and water tumbled over her shoulders and down her stomach. Her feet throbbed. Blood tinted the water and then swirled with the fast-moving current.

  “Oh, please, come back!” the aspen called, again a little girl’s voice.

  Cassie fought the churning water. She lifted her foot, and the current grabbed it. She forced it down and wormed it between stones. She lifted her other foot. Wet, her skirt pulled with a weight that smacked against her legs. She raised her arms as the water deepened, and she gasped when the wet coolness licked her stomach.

  Reaching the middle of the river, she forded downstream. Pleading with her, the aspen and Father Forest followed onshore. Mouth pressed into a grim line, Cassie focused her eyes on her feet over the broad curve of her stomach. Blood stopped swirling around her toes after a few minutes. Salmon darted through the clear water as passing streaks of silver. She hoped Father Forest was not on speaking terms with their munaqsri. How soon until the river was also her enemy?

  The shore was suddenly quiet. She spared a glance at it. Father Forest and the aspen were nowhere to be seen. Bracing herself between the stones as the current pushed against her back, Cassie scanned the trees. Was it paranoia if the trees really were watching? She managed a grim smile.

  Cassie waded to a boulder midriver and pulled herself out of the water like a whale beaching. In protest, the baby in her writhed. She stroked her undulating stomach and leaned back on one elbow. “Rest first. Then stage two,” she said to it.

  She should not have difficulty finding a bog. In a boreal forest, it was harder to not find one. In fall, the woods were riddled with them. Cassie rubbed her aching thighs, chilled into gooseflesh in the wind. The trick would be after the bog.

  She knew where she was going; the aspen had told her: Some trees on mountainsides can speak to the winds. She remembered seeing the Mackenzies back when she’d been in the tundra. But the journey there . . .

  First things first: Find the bog, lose her pursuers. Cassie slid off the rock. The water felt almost warm after the chilling air. She waded downstream of the boulder, then lowered herself in up to her shoulders. She lifted her legs. Her stomach buoyed with her torso. Floating, she was swept downstream.

  * * * * *

  “Charming,” Cassie said, half to herself and half to the bog. Steam rose around her from the rotting ferns and logs. Hell could not have more humidity. Or smell worse. She wrinkled her nose. The bog smelled cloying, the sweet-sour of decomposing vegetation. “Whose bright idea was this?” she asked aloud.

  She waded across the muck. It squished between her toes and oozed over her bare feet like melted tar. Stepping into a patch of rotting leaves, Cassie sank to her knee. Mud slurped as she lifted her foot out. She grimaced. It was nearly impossible to distinguish depth. One false step, and she could drown in mud.

  Cassie looked across the bog. Straggly spruces clung to the muck like sickly scarecrows stuck in an abandoned field. Roots need ground, she thought. The mud will be shallow near the trees. But were these trees in Father Forest’s domain? She did not want to risk it. But she did not want to risk sinking into bottomless ooze either.

  Mosquitoes descended en masse as she debated. In a cloud, they rained down on her unprotected skin. She swatted the air. “Bloodsucking vampires,” she said. “This just gets better and better.” She wondered if her slapping was attracting the attention of the mosquito munaqsri. Anything could be an enemy, she thought. She stopped slapping. Quickly compromising, she tugged a sapling out of the mud. Waving away mosquitoes and poking the ooze, she slogged forward.

  She used her makeshift walking stick as a guide. If it sank less than two feet, she waded forward; more than two feet, she went in another direction. She did not bother to test the pools of black water. Purple orchids and pitcher plants marked those bottomless pools. She steered wide around them, and worried she was doing figure eights through the bog. She missed her GPS.

  By the time that sunset flared across the sky, she missed her water canteen even more. Cassie wet her lips, and she tasted mud. Her throat felt like sandpaper. The baby squirmed, and she felt an elbow in her rib. “Sorry,” she said, patting her stomach. “It’s not purified.” The bog water looked like chocolate syrup in the fading light.

  She had to stop—the growing shadows made it impossible to distinguish between the bottomless pits and the harmless puddles. Cassie curled up on a moss patch as Orion’s belt poked through the deep blue. Hours later, she woke three inches deep in muck.

  She extracted herself with the aid of her walking stick. Mud made her skin itch. Her hair was clotted. She stretched her back, and mossy mud slid off her shoulders.

  Cassie eyed the muddy water. Do you know how many bacteria are in that water? her father’s voice said in her head. Could one sip hurt so much? she argued with him. Her tongue felt swollen. It hurt to swallow. Indigestion was better than dehydration. Dehydration would kill her faster.

  Kneeling, she swirled her hand in a pool of light brownish water. Water bugs scattered. Algae bobbed in the ripples. She tried to think of it as iced tea. It had the same color and consistency. She scooped some into her hands and sipped. It spilled over her chin. “Oh, ew,” she said. It tasted as vile as she imagined raw sewage would taste. She wiped her mouth with a muddy sleeve. Her stomach churned. But she needed the water. Her baby needed it.

  Midway through the day, she drank again, and then she drank again in the evening. Thinking constantly of water, she had trouble concentrating. Jab the stick down, walk forward, jab the stick down, walk forward. She repeated it to herself as a litany.

  During her second sunset in the bog, she found a patch of cloudberries. She fell to her knees in the muck. She tore the fat yellow berries from the bushes and shoved them into her mouth. Berries exploded like fireworks on her tongue, and the juices slid down her throat, as sharp as liquor. She tasted mud from her fingers, but she did not care. She ate until the bushes were bare, and then she slept beside them.

  Her feet tingled, waking her near dawn. Reaching awkwardly around her stomach, she rubbed them. They were clammy to the touch. Skin that showed through the mud was red. She had to find dry land soon.

  She combed through the patch of cloudberries. She found three uneaten berries, no more. The night before, she had been thorough. This morning, her stomach hurt. Taking up her walking stick again, she slogged on.

  * * * * *

  Cassie saw a phalanx of spruces, shooting tall i
nto the air. She leaned on her stick and hobbled on numb feet. Her stick sank five inches, then two, then one. The carpet changed from sphagnum moss to spruce needles. Ferns and club mosses replaced orchids. She hesitated five feet from the first white spruce. Dripping from her skirt in clumps, mud plopped irregularly to the ground. The forest could hold a thousand spies. Father Forest himself could be waiting for her.

  She told herself he would not recognize her, caked with mud. Even if he did, he would keel over from the stench of her. Slowly, painfully, she climbed up a hill, out of the bog. Needles stuck to her feet, crackling softly.

  At the top of the hill, Cassie stopped again and lowered herself onto a fallen log. Dark spruce green, broken by autumn leaves, stretched for miles and miles over the foothills of the mountains. The mountains, outlined in the sun, crowned the horizon. Honey golden and brushed with glacial white, the mountains were beyond beautiful, but it was hard to care when everything hurt.

  Bending awkwardly around her stomach, Cassie wiped mud from the soles of her feet with ferns. Her feet were swollen and cold. As she wiped, she saw skin. It looked waxy and was mottled with burgundy splotches. She touched it, and it felt as spongy as moss. “Lovely,” she said, swallowing back bile. She dried her feet as well as she could. She knew she should not walk on them, but the longer she stayed in one place, the more likely Father Forest was to find her.

  She stood and winced. She felt the baby shove its knee (or elbow) outward. “Don’t worry. I’m not giving up,” she told it. “I’ll keep you free.”

  Using her stick, she picked her way over rocks and roots down the hill. In spots, the hill was sheer. She had to snake down it, avoiding the drop-offs. Below her, she could see the reflected blue of a stream. If she had to, she told herself, she could move river to river, bog to bog, across the forested foothills. So long as she did not have to move faster than a shuffle.

  She made it to the bottom. Her feet felt like blocks of wood, and she moved painfully slowly as the terrain went uphill again. Something rustled above her. Wind or munaqsri? Squirrel or spy? Heart thudding in her ears, she scanned the trees. She saw nothing.

  Cassie sank against a spruce. “I hate this,” she said to the tree. “I just want you to know that I hate this.” She bent around her swollen stomach to examine her feet. Blistered now, they felt like they were burning. She picked off needles and dirt that had stuck to the blisters. There was nothing she could do for her feet, except hope that the trench foot did not worsen into gangrene. She felt her stomach skin ripple as the baby squirmed like a bird bashing its shell. It did not like her bending. “Just a little while longer,” she said to it as she straightened. “We can do this.”

  Limping, she made it another mile on the strength of bravado before the rain began. On the slope of the next hill, she heard it before she felt it. Rain pelted the coniferous canopy. Aspens quivered. Rain burst through. She tilted her face up, and water spattered over her. Mud streaked down her neck as the bog muck sloughed off her. She caught drops in her hands and mouth and drank. Rain washed over the forest floor.

  Needles underfoot became as slippery as soap. Cassie hurried to the shelter of a fallen spruce. She huddled under it as rain soaked the trees.

  A steady trickle ran down her back, and Cassie shivered. She pressed against the cold bark. She imagined the baby inside her shivering too. She wondered if she was hurting it, being out here—and then she wondered when she’d begun to care what it felt. She couldn’t remember a moment. It had sneaked up on her gradually with each kick, each hiccup, each shift she felt inside.

  Cassie curled into a ball. Resting her head on a root, she wrapped her arms around her stomach as if she could cradle the baby within. Water pooled under her head. Her wet hair chilled her neck. In fits, she slept. She dreamed about Bear; she dreamed about Gram; she dreamed about a child with wide eyes and a distended stomach. The child stared at her without speaking until Cassie’s eyes snapped open.

  She was hot and shivering. Arms shaking, she struggled to sit. Water dripped onto her. Outside her makeshift shelter, it drizzled. She lurched out.

  The world spun as she stood too fast, and she had to close her eyes. She put her hand on her forehead—hot to the touch. She knew she had a fever. Gram used to take care of her when she had a fever.

  Opening her eyes, she looked for Gram.

  She stumbled forward. “Gram, I don’t feel well.” It came out as mush. Her ears rang, and her vision blurred. She felt as if she were underwater. “Gram?”

  Gram was a white bear. Then she was a starving child, eyes as wide as Father Forest’s tea saucers. Cassie held her arms out.

  The bear-child ran.

  Cassie ran. Her head pounded and her feet throbbed. She saw fine white lines imposed over the forest. She saw a flash of darkness.

  Cassie cradled her forehead in her hands. She wanted to outrun the throbbing in her head. She ran faster and, blind, burst through the trees.

  She did not see the drop-off.

  She did not see the rocks.

  She fell. Sharp rocks hit as she somersaulted down the slope. Pain lanced through her. Screaming, she rolled.

  She hit bottom. A stream gurgled beside her. Her hand dangled in it. Wet, she thought. She lost consciousness.

  She had fever dreams: blood and heat and searing cold. As the dreams and the fever faded, the pain jolted her awake. She lay, twisted, on the rocks. Her skin felt tenderized. Her ears rang. Her head spun. Her stomach . . . She writhed and gasped for air. Her guts squeezed.

  Oh, what have I done? Please, please, don’t be dead. Cassie tried to sit. She could not seem to get enough air. Please, live. Live, damn you.

  Blackness swam up in her eyes as she moved. She vomited. Sharp pain sliced through her body as she heaved. She brought her hand, shaking, up to her mouth. And she saw the blood. She spread her fingers. Neon scarlet blood. It was all she could see. It consumed her world.

  She was vomiting blood.

  Cassie closed her eyes. Still saw red. She shuddered. She knew what it meant, alone and hurt. She had not only killed her baby. She had killed herself.

  PART THREE

  At the Back of the North Wind

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Latitude 63° 48’ 11” N

  Longitude 126° 02’ 38” W

  Altitude 1108 ft.

  CASSIE WAS DROWNING. She clawed at her throat. She was a beached fish, drowning in air. She saw a shadow cross over her. Fighting, she focused on it.

  It looked like a young Inuit man.

  But that didn’t make any sense. She was alone, dying alone. Just her and her unborn, never-to-be-born child. “I’m sorry, sorry, sorry,” she whispered. She squeezed her eyes shut.

  When she opened them again, the man was waiting silently on the rocks above her. Suddenly, she understood: He was waiting for her to die. “Munaqsri,” she rasped.

  Startled, he lost his footing on the rocks. He skidded down a few feet before catching himself. Pebbles rolled into Cassie, and she flinched.

  “You can see me! I thought you were . . . ,” he said. “You know what I am?”

  Yes, she knew. He was the human munaqsri. He was here to take her soul. Well, she wasn’t going to let him. He was a munaqsri; he could manipulate molecules. He could save her! “Heal me,” she demanded. She coughed. Blood speckled his pants leg.

  He frowned at the blood and then at her. “If you know what I am, then you know I’m not here to heal you.”

  She batted his ankle with a weak hand. “You can,” she said. He had the power. “Do it.”

  Gently, he said, “I’m sorry, but you’re dying.”

  “Not dying.” Not while he could save her. Straining to reach for him, she spat blood.

  Leaning down, he touched her neck, feeling her pulse. “You must be especially determined.” He released her. “You need to let go. Your body is too damaged to heal itself, and you must be in tremendous pain.” He sounded almost kind. “I must take your soul now.”
/>
  She closed her eyes for the briefest of instants and then opened them again. She concentrated on his words as if they were bubbles she had to catch. Her vision swam. “Can’t have it.”

  “Hey, now, we don’t want it drifting off beyond the ends of the earth.”

  She thought of the polar bears, their unclaimed souls drifting off beyond the ends of the earth unless—she remembered the owl and the hare—unless another took them. Could she tempt the human munaqsri? “Know twenty-five thousand,” Cassie said.

  He squatted on the rocks beside her. “What was that?”

  More strongly, she said, “Twenty-five thousand unclaimed souls.” The effort made her gasp. She choked on air and started to shake.

  Catching her shoulders, he steadied her. “Unclaimed? Did you say ‘unclaimed’? As in without a munaqsri?” She could hear the excitement in his voice.

  She closed her eyes. “Can’t talk,” she whispered. “Dying.” Please, let this work!

  “Twenty-five thousand souls.” He was almost shouting. “You said twenty-five thousand! Where? Who?”

  She took a breath as if to speak, but then shuddered—the shudder was not feigned. Heal me! she silently begged.

  She heard him swear, and then pain shot through her as he pressed down on her rib cage. Her torso tightened and her ribs squeezed. She felt as if the ceiling of the sky were collapsing inward and the earth were ripping upward. She screamed. And then suddenly, the pain was gone.

  Surprised, Cassie cut off midscream. She sat up on the blood-soaked rocks. She felt as light as helium. She practiced breathing. Her ribs expanded and contracted evenly. She prodded them. She did not even feel bruised. She looked at herself, bloody and healthy. She ran her hands over her stomach. “Is my baby . . .”

  “Of course,” he said, sounding offended. “I am a professional.”

  A wave of relief rolled over her with an intensity that shocked her. Tears flooded her eyes, and she examined her skin so he wouldn’t notice. Thin pink lines showed where the rocks had pierced her. She flaked the dried blood off them. “Impressive work,” she said, struggling to sound calm. “Thank you.”