She had continued to threaten.
Then came an obvious question.
‘What happened when you were with Unn yesterday evening. Anything in particular?’
‘No,’ said Siss flatly.
‘Yes, what did she say?’ asked Mother, joining in. ‘You did seem a bit odd when you came home. What did she say?’
‘I shan’t tell you!’ said Siss and was to regret it bitterly. She realized she had already said too much. It was pounced on in mid-air.
‘Good heavens, did she say something so you know why this has happened?’
‘No, I know nothing about it, so there!’
It was lucky they asked questions backwards, so that she could say no with a clear conscience. I ran away when Unn wanted to tell me, she thought.
Mother came up and said, ‘I think she’d better go with you. We don’t know what this is all about. You see how upset she is.’
So Siss went with them. At first several of her classmates shared in the confusion, but they were sent home. Siss kept to the edge of the crowd so that she would only be seen in glimpses.
Soon it was night. They were prepared to search all night through, if necessary. Unn must not be left lying out of doors.
Where should they search? Everywhere. There was nothing to guide them. Auntie’s house was the centre. Auntie herself was exhausted. A few of the men had just looked in to ask for advice: guessing here and guessing there.
‘Up in the lake,’ said somebody.
‘Up in the lake? The only open water is near the big river. Surely she can’t have gone that way?’
‘What would she be doing there?’
‘What would she be doing anywhere?’
‘I can’t help thinking of the road. The cars driven by all sorts of people.’
They were hushed and embarrassed, in this muttering from man to man, from which helpful people went out into the night and found nothing. The road. The eternally unsafe and open road. They preferred not to think about it.
‘We’ve been telephoning for a long time in all directions,’ said somebody hurriedly about the road.
‘But there’s something else. What about the waterfall, the big pile of ice that has built up there? There’s supposed to have been some talk of a school trip to it. Could Unn have gone there on her own and then got lost?’
Auntie interrupted. ‘But to play truant from school to do that? That’s not like Unn.’
‘What would be like her, then?’
‘Has she any friends?’
‘No, none. She’s not like that. Yesterday one of the girls was here for the first time since Unn came to live with me.’
‘Oh? Yesterday? Who was that?’
‘That one there, Siss. But she can’t tell anything today. I’ve asked her. Though there was something she didn’t want to say. Something they were giggling about, I expect. I could see it when Siss went home last night. But that’s not important.’
Auntie stood exhausted in the snow outside her house, completely useless as a guide. But she was still the centre.
‘Why did the snow come afterwards?’ she said. ‘Immediately afterwards.’
‘That’s what always happens,’ answered somebody despondently.
‘No,’ said Auntie.
Lights shone in all the houses that night. The new snow was trodden underfoot along all the paths and in between them. Lanterns winked, half blinded by the driving snow, in thickets and on the open heath. Shouts rose up but did not reach far, unable to penetrate the pitch darkness.
‘There’ll be more chance of finding something in the morning when it gets light,’ suggested somebody. But they could not possibly wait until then.
Siss had collapsed in a clump of trees. She was never at any time far enough away to be unable to see the lights and hear the noise. Her father was in touch with her to a certain extent, but she kept well to the edge. Suddenly she collapsed among the trees at the thought of Unn.
Where is Unn?
‘Hey there!’ called somebody close by, but she paid no attention, there was so much shouting.
She had collapsed. Not from fatigue but from a different kind of helplessness.
Nothing must happen to Unn.
She heard steps behind her. She turned her head and saw a young man in the rays of the lantern he was carrying; saw his face, and the joy in it shining warmly towards her. ‘Hey there!’
She only cringed at the sound of his voice. But now he had reached her.
‘No, you don’t!’ he said. ‘I know what you’re thinking. You’re not going to run away from me!’
A pair of strong arms encircled her, she felt them hugging her hard in uncontrolled joy.
‘I was certain I’d find you – I felt I would.’
She understood. ‘But it’s not me!’
He laughed. ‘Try to get me to believe that. But I must say I think you’re carrying this too far.’
‘I tell you it’s not me! I’m helping to look for Unn, too.’
‘Aren’t you Unn?’ said the stranger, his joy extinguished.
It sounded so wonderful, but she had to say, ‘No, I’m Siss.’
The strong arms released her so suddenly that she fell against a stake and bruised herself. The boy said angrily, ‘You’d better stop fooling around here like this. Everyone will think it’s you.’
‘I must come with you, so there. I know her. I know Unn.’
‘Oh, do you?’ he said more gently.
She was not angry with him either.
‘Did you hurt yourself?’
‘No, not a bit.’
‘I didn’t mean to – but I could see you did hurt yourself.’
A small joy in the midst of misery.
‘But you mustn’t fool people like that, when you’re a little girl exactly like the one we’re trying to find. We’re not here for fun. You must go home at once,’ he said and began to be stern again.
Siss was defiant. They weren’t going to talk to her as if she were an unwelcome child they wanted out of the way. She said thoughtlessly, ‘I’m the only one who knows Unn. We were together yesterday evening.’
Was he impressed by that? No. He asked directly, half reluctantly, ‘Do you know anything, then?’
She looked at him. The lantern was between them so that they could see each other’s eyes clearly. His round eyes looked down and he went away.
Siss was to regret such thoughtless words. The atmosphere was tense. In a trice, she was caught in a net of her own making. It was reported quick as a flash that the little girl Siss knew something.
The minutes were precious. Before long a forceful hand was holding her arm. But this was no strange boy with kind eyes like marbles, it was the stony face of a man she knew, a face that was stony and frightening tonight, though not normally so.
‘Is that you, Siss? You must come with me.’
Siss was numb. ‘What do you want?’
‘You ought to go home. You’re not allowed to run about here like this. But there’s something else, too,’ he said, making her tremble.
His hand was rough. She was forced to go with him.
‘My father gave me permission. You know nothing about it,’ she said defiantly. ‘And I’m not tired.’
‘Now then, come along. Some of us want to talk to you a bit.’
No! she thought.
The man let her go when they reached two other searchers – she knew them, too. They came from the next district. She already knew what this meant.
‘Where’s Father?’ she asked to brace herself.
‘Oh, he’s not very far away, I’ll warrant. Now listen to me, Siss. You’ve said you know something about Unn. You were with her yesterday evening, you said.’
‘Yes, I was. I was at her home for a while.’
‘What did Unn talk about?’
‘Oh –’
‘What is it you know about Unn?’
Three pairs of eyes watched her sternly in the lantern light. Normally
they were friendly; now they were afraid and hard as stone.
She did not answer.
‘You must answer. It might save Unn’s life.’
Siss started. ‘No!’
‘You’ve said you know something about Unn, haven’t you?’
‘She didn’t say it. She didn’t say anything about this.’
‘What do you mean, this?’
‘That she wanted to go anywhere.’
‘Unn may have said something that could help us to look for her.’
‘No, it couldn’t.’
‘What did Unn tell you?’
‘Nothing,’
‘Do you understand that this is serious? We’re not asking you to plague you. We’re asking you in order to find Unn. You’ve said that –’
‘It was only something I said!’
‘I don’t think so. I can see you know something. What did Unn say?’
‘I can’t tell you.’ ‘Why not?’
‘Because it wasn’t like that. She didn’t say it! And she didn’t say a word about hiding.’
‘Maybe not, but all the same –’
She began to scream, ‘Let me alone!’
They stopped abruptly. It sounded too risky when Siss screamed like that.
‘Go home then, Siss. You’re exhausted. I expect your mother’s there.’
‘I’m not tired. I’ve been given permission to stay. I must stay.’
‘Must you?’
‘Yes, I think I must.’
‘We can’t waste time on this. It’s a pity you won’t tell us anything. It might have helped us.’
No, she thought. They left her.
Her head felt empty and strange. There was an easy way home, but she had to stay all night. She wandered about as before, near the lanterns and then into the darkness that hid her once more. Again she was stopped, by a different man. He expressed no surprise at her presence; he was too preoccupied.
‘There you are, Siss. I want to ask you something. Do you think Unn might have wanted to go and look at the pile of ice in the waterfall?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘Weren’t there plans for the whole school to go on such a trip?’
‘Yes, there were.’
‘She didn’t mention that she wanted to go there by herself? She’s in the habit of being by herself, you know.’ ‘She didn’t say so.’
This couldn’t have been so important; the man was exceedingly cautious, but for Siss it was the last straw. She stood howling, bitter and defiant, in the driving snow.
‘Oh Lord,’ said the man. ‘I didn’t mean to make you cry.’
‘Are you going there?’ Siss managed to get out.
‘Yes, we must, and without any delay. Since there’s been talk of it recently at school. It’s possible,’ he said, ‘that Unn has taken it into her head to go there and then lost her way. We shall go along the river from the point where it leaves the lake.’
‘But then –’
‘Thank you for helping us, Siss. Hadn’t you better go home now?’
‘No, I’m coming with you to the river!’
‘No fear! Well, you must talk to your father about that. I think I can see him over there.’
Yes, there was Father, energetic and stern, like the others.
‘I want to come, too. You said I could.’
‘Not any more.’
‘I’m just as good a walker as they are!’ she said loudly in the busy, tense crowd – and felt her own body tensing itself in readiness.
‘I bet she is,’ said someone who liked to see her standing there warm and eager.
Father dared not oppose her, the way Siss looked at that moment.
‘Well, well, it may be true that you can hold out. I shall have to go in somewhere and phone your mother. She’s sitting up, waiting for you.’
A large crowd set off in the darkness to the river, out along the edge of the lake towards the outlet. They fanned outwards as they walked but were careful to keep together. The snow was not falling so heavily now, but it sifted against the face incessantly and already lay so deep on the ground that it made walking difficult. Siss did not notice it; she was filled with fresh courage.
Nearly all of them had lanterns. They formed a huge, wavering patch of light that flickered and shone over hillocks and headlands on its way to the river. It was a strange sight. It was strange to be walking in the middle of it. Siss was filled with fresh courage.
The lake curved away into the night like a white snow-covered plain. The ice was as strong as granite, so nothing could have happened there. They could not imagine that Unn would have crossed that stark expanse of ice.
They floundered along. Siss kept close to her father now that she had been accepted.
They came to the outlet, and directed the light on to the open black water gliding gently from under the edge of the ice and on without a sound. The men studied the black water closely; it was horrid. They could not see the ice palace from here. The waterfall was much further down, out of earshot in all the confusion.
The current flowed deep and noiseless. The crowd divided and continued along each side.
The snow was falling more thickly again. It was a nuisance, sifting against the glass of the lanterns, where it melted, making their glow unreliable. There was a young boy who was over-excited and nervous about it all, and he snarled at the irritating snow, his teeth showing white at the corners of his mouth. ‘Stop it!’
At once it stopped. It stopped as if the sack had suddenly emptied. The boy started and, feeling embarrassed, looked around quickly to see if anyone had noticed. No.
Now that the snow no longer filled the air – now the men saw for the first time what an enormous, silent night it was. Siss stood beside the noiseless current coming from under the edge of the ice. Anything could be hidden and sucked away down there. Don’t think about it.
They began to walk downwards along the banks of the river, along beaches and inland among the hillocks. The land sloped; the river found its voice.
Hurry! They rushed across sticks and stones. But they had to look carefully at the same time.
The turbulent, leaping procession of lanterns kept company across the river, twinkling in the hard ice tracery edging it. In between them the water was black. The glimmer from the lanterns did not reach very far. Out there was the deep unknown. Far below they could just hear the waterfall.
There was nothing to be seen along the river banks.
We expected that, but still – that’s how it is with searching.
A shout from the first to climb down. ‘Come and look!’
At once they all saw it. At once Siss saw it. None of the men had had time for a walk to the falls that had been talked about so much this autumn, and the ice palace had grown so much only recently. Throughout the period of frost the water had gradually acquired a larger surface on which to build. The men raised their lanterns towards the sculptured waterfall, thunderstruck by what they saw.
Siss looked at them, at the palace, the darkness and the lanterns-she would never forget this expedition.
The crowd descended the slope on both sides of the waterfall, crawling out on to the uneven ice, shining their lanterns into all the crannies they could find.
The palace was twice as big in this uncertain light. The falls were high, and the water had built up from the ground to the very top. The men shone their lanterns on to the sheer, glistening sides. They were hard and closed; the snow had found no foothold but was piled up at the bottom. Up on top, however, the snow lay and provided a covering for the clefts between the pinnacles and domes. The lantern light wavered only a short way up the sides; further up, the ice walls were grey in the darkness. Deep inside, like a menacing beast, the self-enclosed river roared.
But the palace was dark and dead; no light came from within. The men could not see how it looked inside the rooms; their lights did not reach far enough. All the same, the searchers were bewitched.
The water roared w
ithin the palace, dashed itself into froth against the rock beneath and emerged again as froth and spray, from under towers and walls, reassembled and was the same mighty current as before, hurrying on. In this densely packed midnight it seemed impossible to guess how far.
Nothing to be seen except the palace and the river and immensity.
The palace was closed.
Siss looked to see whether the men were disappointed. No. They showed nothing. And, after all, it depended on what each of them expected to find. Everything depended on precisely that.
But the men just stood.
How has this actually been made?
Nobody was bothering about Siss now. They left her to accompany her father, and brought her no questions. They simply went on with the search. Nobody could have penetrated further into the mass of ice than they did. They converged from both sides in the snow on top of the domes and shouted advice to each other against the roar of the falls.
A shout came. ‘There’s an opening here after all!’
They hurried to the spot. It was an entry almost hidden between green walls. Two of the smallest forced their way in, holding a lantern high.
Nothing there either. Only an icy breath, much colder than it was outside, that chilled them to the marrow. Outside it was mild now. An ice chamber, and no more openings to be found. Behind it churned the blind eternal roar.
They shouted to each other in the roaring chamber that there was nothing there! Then they shone the light around it once more, and found a fissure smaller than a hand’s breadth and with water gurgling at the edges.
Nothing.
They squeezed out again to the others. ‘Nothing,’ they reported.
‘Might have expected it.’
The men looked helplessly at the construction of ice rising rampant into the air. Their faces were grave that night. The one who had assumed the leadership said, ‘We shan’t be through with this in a hurry.’
They could not guess the extent of his meaning. They must have sensed the enigma here, each one of them. Siss looked at her father. He had not attempted to lead them. He was simply one of the rest.
But someone in the crowd unexpectedly went over to Siss. She was a little tired, yes, very tired really, but so tense that she had forgotten about it. She looked in fear at the man: there would be more questions.
The Ice Palace Page 6