Jaana discarded Tess’s wrist and turned back to the overflowing bookshelf. Tess was a little confused—she’d taken it for granted that this fight, when it came, would be a bloodbath. Certainly she hadn’t expected it to end with a little burp of steam and a turning of backs, as it just had. Still, Tess took her time in the shared bedroom, giving her grandparents a chance to cool off. Giving the blood a chance to drain from her cheeks. When she returned to the living room to get another box, she saw that Jaana and Otso were still there, still fussing over the bookshelf. They’d rearranged the spines to give prominent space to this new Finnish collection, elementary workbooks and all. Otso didn’t even try to hide the fact that his eyes were streaming. He and Jaana looked so unaccountably proud, so unexpectedly grateful. Tess understood that her father had meant for this. Whatever had happened between him and the Kivis, Sam hadn’t taught her and Axel Finnish simply for this little moment of shock. Nor had he done so to make Jaana and Otso feel lousy for assuming he wouldn’t. He’d taught them Finnish for the larger moment, in which this smaller one was set—the kids and their grandparents together in the first place. He must have planned for this to happen, must have assumed it would one day. But what on earth had he been waiting for?
“Dad spoke it too,” Tess said.
“Of course he did,” Jaana said, turning from the bookshelf. Her smile was tired, and sad, but still it was a smile.
The regular work of upkeep had had the effect of elongating their days at Talvijärvi, but in Helsinki life sped up again. Now that their grandparents knew that Tess and Axel had a decent foundation in Finnish to work with, they moved even faster to get them enrolled into school. An entrance exam was scheduled for the following week, and by Friday Tess and Axel had each been assigned a tutor to drill their Finnish into better shape. Tess’s truce with her grandmother lasted throughout this limbo, and she even gave up on trying to get in touch with Grandpa Paul. Escape didn’t just seem unfeasible now. It also seemed like the worse alternative. Besides, Tess hadn’t heard a peep out of her grandpa since she’d called him from the marketplace. She wondered if this was calculated on his part—maybe Grandpa Paul was trying to convince her that she’d be better off once she learned not to rely on him for anything. If that was the case, it was working.
Axel’s behavior also helped distract them from their smoldering fight. Tess’s little brother had gotten over the fatigue that had walloped him in Talvijärvi, but his recovery seemed incomplete. He shuffled along, slack and disinterested, as they toured the halls of what would be his new school. He’d outright laughed when Tess suggested they practice for their placement tests—after all, the only way to exacerbate the already severe social liabilities of the whole new-foreign-orphan thing was to add “dummy held back” to the mix. Grief would have been totally understandable, but this struck Tess as something different—something worse. It was almost as though Axel thought that this imminent new reality didn’t apply to him. Like the life taking shape was somehow optional. But it wasn’t until Axel told her about the ghosts in the forest that Tess decided to say something. Honestly, it’s not like he gave her much of a choice.
It was Sunday afternoon, and Kari was coming to spend the night. Far from an ideal arrangement, but Kalle needed to make one last trip to Talvijärvi to get the house set for winter, and Jaana had made it clear that taking Kari out of school was no longer an option. Axel made his move about an hour before Kari was set to arrive, yanking Tess into their bedroom, whispering that he had a pressing matter to discuss. She was briefly relieved by the apparent return of her brother’s nerdy formality. But everything that came out of his mouth after that straight-up horrified her.
“This is going to sound weird. But the only way I can say it is . . . is just to say it. I spoke to Mom. This isn’t a joke. I’m not playing. You’re going to think it’s pretend, but it isn’t pretend. I spoke to Mom. To Mom’s ghost. She lives at Talvijärvi. Or not, like, lives. You know.” Axel left it at that for a moment, staring at Tess over the gulf between their beds. “Mom’s ghost. That’s where she, um, dwells.”
As though Tess had somehow missed that crucial bit. “Weird” was a way-insufficient caveat. She was silent for a moment, trying to keep her stare from becoming a glare. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to say to that, Axel.”
He huffed. “Well, not that. Not anything. Just listen to me, all right?” Axel glanced at the door. “I never expected you to believe me, but you deserve to know. You’ve seen her, too. She was the bear—the bear that came into our yard on the night Dad died. Remember how we were wondering why no one else saw her? Remember how there was nothing in the papers about it? That’s because it wasn’t a brown bear. It was Mom.”
“But another person did see her—her keeper, remember? And also, more importantly, it wasn’t Mom. It was a bear. You took a picture of it.”
Axel winced, as though this were a wrinkle that he couldn’t account for. “That picture,” he said. “That’s the proof. When I look at that, I see Mom. Not”—he seemed to anticipate that Tess was going to pounce, which she was—“not metaphorically, or anything stupid like that. Mom. Herself.”
“That’s not funny, Axel.”
“I’m not trying to be,” he said. “Also, there wasn’t anybody else there. Just the Keeper, and he’s not a person. He’s something else.”
“Okay. Another ghost?” A dumb question, and she felt dumb for asking it.
“Not a ghost, exactly. He’s different. What he called himself that night actually fits the best—he’s the Keeper. But yeah, there are other ghosts. Like heaps of them. He keeps them. He’s sort of . . . I don’t know.” Axel’s stare broke for a moment and drifted, searching. “He’s like a shepherd. He helps them when they need help. And do you remember that story Kari told, about the woodsman and his dead wife?”
Tess pursed her lips and gave a little nod. She never should have let them row out to the pine island. Her brother’s fantasies didn’t need any encouragement.
“The Keeper was in that story!” Axel said. “He was the one who promised to take Väinö into the forest, so he could look for Aino. He’s also the one who brought Mom to our house, so she could look for—”
“Hold on a sec.” Tess put her hand up in the air. “Just trying to figure out how that works, exactly. Do ghosts fly coach? Or is there like a pet-cargo alternative?” Tess couldn’t help the sarcasm, but it was water off a duck’s back to Axel. There was no nudging him out of this mania.
“They didn’t fly—they don’t need to.” Axel scooted forward on his bed, just the tips of his sneakers touching the hardwood. “I spoke to them, Tess. I spoke to the Keeper and I spoke to Mom. That’s who I was with on the night of the party.” Tess remembered Axel standing outside the Kivis’ cottage, hair mussed and pants grimy, looking like a shell-shocked urchin. Come to think of it, that was the night he’d fallen into this gloom-funk. “I was with them, but you’ll never guess where we were.” Axel paused, maybe hoping that she’d actually try. But Tess wasn’t going to throw so much as a twig on this bonfire.
“We were home,” he said. “We were in Baldwin.”
Oh. This was, finally, starting to make a little bit of sense. But the fact that it was transparent, fantastical wish fulfillment didn’t make what Axel was saying any less distressing. He went on about how he’d stumbled upon the A-frame—as in their actual house, where they used to live, in New York—in the forest behind the Kivis’ cottage. That’s how their mother’s ghost had traveled to America. There was a path running through the spruce trees that could, magically, take you there. A path that stitched the woods of the world together, from the Amazon to Central Park to Talvijärvi. The path was difficult to follow, but if you knew the way, it could take you almost anywhere. The Keeper did know the way, and he’d agreed to bring Saara to Baldwin. “But it wasn’t to find us,” Axel said, suddenly pulled in and somber. “She was looking for Dad. Mom knew that Dad was going to die, and she wanted to find him�
�his ghost, I mean. Because this place isn’t where he’s supposed to wind up.” By “this place,” Axel was indicating more than just their immediate surroundings. He meant Finland. “Talvijärvi was Mom’s home. It’s where her heart was. So when she died, she got sent here. But Dad’s home is somewhere different, so on the day he died, Mom went out searching for him. But she didn’t find him. She still hasn’t. And if she can’t, they’re never going to be able to be together. Mom and Dad will be all alone, stuck in the places they came from. We’ve got to help them.”
That was, apparently, the end of it. Tess took her time. She had a vague sense that a great deal depended on the way she responded to this. Axel had laid his deluded nerd-heart out on the table, and she could either coddle it and hand it back, or she could do what was needed to knock her brother into the land of the fucking big kids. Tess crossed the span of hardwood and joined Axel on his bed. She took his hand in hers, but it didn’t have the effortless sincerity of Kari’s gesture. She felt like she was onstage for a play, way underprepared.
“I know it’s really hard . . .” Sort of a false start.
Axel looked duly skeptical.
“Listen,” Tess tried again, “we need to start thinking about this as our life. Dad is gone. Grandpa Paul isn’t coming to get us. We aren’t going to go back home. This is our home now. The sooner you accept that, the sooner—”
“Were you even listening to me?” Axel pulled his small, sweaty fist out of her grip. “That’s not what I’m talking about!”
“It’s exactly what you’re talking about.” Tess had been trying not to get angry with the kid, but maybe anger was in order right about now. This was the exact same crap that their father used to pull. Playing pretend was fine for an afternoon, or a weekend, but it made a lousy lifestyle choice. It was the root cause of the very predicament they found themselves in with the Kivis—Sam had flown them to Renaissance Faires in Oregon and Maryland, but he’d never flown them here. He’d taught Tess to identify a waxwing by its call but had never let her hear her grandparents’ voices over the phone. “You didn’t go to our house,” she continued, not bothering to blunt the edge of her voice. “And you didn’t speak to Mom. Because Mom is dead. Because our house is in New York. And I’m telling you, Axel, next week you’re going to be in a new class. You’re going to have a chance to make some friends. So you had better quit with this ghost shit before then. I know it isn’t fair, but you’ve gotta grow up a little bit. Actually, more than a little bit.”
Axel stood up from the mattress, his expression dead. “I wish I had proof, but I don’t,” he said. “The Keeper says that the reason you can’t see Mom in the picture is because you haven’t been on the path. But even if you could see her, I bet you still wouldn’t believe me. You’d find a way not to.”
“Congratulations!” She felt cruel, but she was getting desperate. “You win that bet. Because there is no proof. Because there are no ghosts. Because reality.” Tess would have gone on, but Axel had already left the room. She let him escape.
And boy, did he ever. Kalle arrived about a half hour later, parking his pickup in front of the Kivis’ condominium to drop Kari off. Tess and Kari had already planned to spend the day in town, which was good, because the last place she wanted to be was stuck in that claustrophobic little flat with her maddeningly weird brother. She and Kari went to the movies to watch Finnish-dubbed superheroes give aliens what for. After that they took one of the trams out to the edge of the blinking city, Kari playing the tour guide. It was already well after dinnertime when Jaana called Kari’s phone to say that they’d been gone long enough. They were going to tire Axel out.
“What are you talking about?” Tess said. “Axel isn’t with us.”
PART THREE
The Path
And he saw the pine-clad mountains,
And the hills with fir trees covered,
But he found no more his homestead,
And the walls he found not standing;
Where the house before was standing,
Rustled now a cherry-thicket,
On the mound were pine trees growing,
Juniper beside the well-spring.
—KALEVALA, RUNE XXIX
14
Axel’s Escape
Originally, Axel’s plan had been to slip away without saying anything to his sister. He’d started packing in the morning, before anybody else was awake, being careful to take only what wouldn’t be missed—forgotten tins of sausages and sardines in the back of a cupboard, an old box of rye crackers, two jars of cloudberry preserves. To these he added sweaters and a flashlight, matches and a single fork. Of course, there was also the question of defense; not only from the stalking Hiisi but also the historical grab bag of surly, warlike ghosts. At least in this department Axel was in good shape. Sam’s knight-of-the-realm wardrobe included actual steel chain mail, plated with oiled brass. And even though Sam’s sword had OTHTAR’S REPLICA WORKSHOP carved into the pommel, it was still exactly what Axel thought a real sword should be: a big-ass metal stick with a pointy end.
He had no doubt that Tess would lose her mind with worry, but he didn’t think there was any way to prevent that. After all, his picture of Saara—the only real proof he had—was invisible to her. Without it Tess would never believe the first word of his story, not in a freaking life age of the earth. But Axel began to have second thoughts as his escape drew closer. Maybe he should quit with the assumptions and give his sister the benefit of the doubt. After all, Saara was Tess’s mother too. And Sam was her father. That their parents were more than just bones in dirt—and moreover, that they needed help—was something Tess deserved to know. Axel decided to give his sister a chance. Maybe she’d surprise him.
Tess so, so didn’t surprise him. Axel was on his own. Not that there was anything new about that. He’d been on his own ever since the day his dad died.
Getting his overstuffed backpack downstairs without arousing suspicion was easy enough—Axel volunteered to bring a load of garbage to the chute before the Hannula brothers were due to arrive, and he used that as a chance to stash his backpack behind a potted plant in the lobby. But the task of sneaking it, and himself, into the back of Kalle’s pickup would be considerably more difficult. Everything depended upon how distracted his grandparents were and how long Kalle hung around. But as luck would have it, their reunion was full of commotion. Kalle must have still been smarting from Jaana’s talking-to, because he leaped out of the truck and carried his little brother’s bag right into the lobby. “Thank you so much for taking him,” Kalle said, preening before the Kivis, every inch the responsible elder sibling. “I’m so sorry for the trouble. Really, I shouldn’t be more than a night. Two, at most. Do you have my number? Here. I’ll text you.”
Idiot. It was no trouble at all for Axel to slip out of the lobby and hoist himself into the truck bed. Kalle had tied a tarp over his gear, and Axel crawled beneath it, lying still. He’d overheard Tess making plans with Kari on the phone and had told Jaana that he meant to tag along with them. It would maybe buy Axel a few hours, and even after his grandparents realized he was missing, there would still be the matter of figuring out where he’d gone. He should have the night, and most of tomorrow, before they worked it out and came roaring up to Talvijärvi. The truck started, and Axel had to restrain himself from hooting. There’d be time to congratulate himself later. In the woods. With his mom.
He still felt dumb for how he’d behaved during their first real meeting. Axel had just been so certain that she’d come for him. Because, you know . . . how could she not have? Ever since his father died, his life had been like the depressing first act of a fantasy book. It was ridiculously Rowling or Lewis—hell, even the kids out of Bedknobs and Broomsticks were de facto orphans. And when your mom’s spirit makes a surprise appearance on the day your dad dies, that kind of invites you to make a certain set of assumptions. Like maybe she’s come bearing tidings of comfort—reassurances that things are about to sto
p sucking and get wonderful. Or even better: She’s brought news of some secret, magical heritage, and PS your real, awesome life begins now. But when Axel hugged Saara’s matted body, the first words out of her mouth weren’t even directed at him.
“Get it off me,” the bear had said.
The Keeper still had his back braced against the door. A few of the birds were still pecking and hollering outside. “You be nice,” he’d said.
“I will not. What is it?” Saara used one of her big, fish-stinking paws to roll Axel away from her. She touched him only gingerly, as though afraid he’d smear.
Then a bar of moonlight came through the window, and for quick moment Axel glimpsed his mother’s ponytail, her horn-rimmed glasses, a spray of freckles. He gulped down a breath and held it. This was what Axel had been waiting for his entire life. Everything that came before this moment, the good and the bad—all those autumns at the Renaissance Faire with his father, all those afternoons getting poked and peered at by a long procession of doctors and specialists—was nothing but a prologue to this exact moment. Axel went to go hug his mother, but the moon had already disappeared and she was suddenly horrible again, all teeth and lips and snout. Tiny eyes.
“We talked about this,” the Keeper said. “He’s your son.”
“This one?” Saara gave a huge, chest-filling sniff, almost enough to change the atmospheric pressure in the room. “Looks weird. Smells weird. Keep it away from me.”
The Keeper turned to Axel and smiled lamely. “Sorry. Manners are the second thing to go, after the heartbeat.”
Axel had nothing to say to this. He stared at the bear, his mother. His eyes were watering a little bit, but they weren’t tears of joy. They were tears of who-knows. Tears of what-the-hell. Really, it shouldn’t have been a surprise that his mother didn’t recognize him. Their lives had overlapped for all of twenty minutes. But still, hadn’t Saara been, like, watching? From up on high, or beyond the veil, or wherever the dead watch the living from? Axel had taken it for granted that his mom would be apprised of current events. He’d been banking on some common ground.
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