“A strange world. You have had to make all the choices alone. There are not many worlds where even a man is able to choose so much, and you’ve been just a little girl. Elsewhere you’d already be a bonny smith’s wife and borne your husband and family at least a child or two.”
A wry smile again, and suddenly Alice feels the hot fingers again, gently brushing her cheekbones and brows. The golden irises are full of sparks. The voice is just like ten years ago. It’s full of extraordinary music that made a little girl believe there’s a lot more to life than the everyday.
“Perhaps it’s just because your spark is so strong. Not quite fire, but brighter than I’ve ever seen in a human. Strange world that has forgotten its smithies and yet tempered you to be so strong. Instead of dimming out, you’ve just grown stronger, almost ready to burst in flame. You warm my heart, amazing smith’s daughter.”
The hot fingers do not leave Alice’s cheek, nor the golden eyes her own. Reynard’s fingers dance like flames from her cheek down onto her neck and over the shirt strap on her arm. They both turn to look how the long fingers draw lines in the coal dust on her arms.
Alice remembers how a little girl wanted to hold embers because of their beauty. Now she’s feeling like that again. Something enchantingly beautiful and alien is in front of her, and for a while she wants to forget that it may burn. The burn scars on her fingers glow red, as Alice’s hand lifts up to touch the narrow chest. Her fingers feel the golden down. The golden pendant glimmers when his breathing changes rhythm. The first kiss is like a light warm flutter. The second one, like looking at the sun with eyes open. The third already feels like scarring her skin with new burns.
Agenor’s saddle blanket smells of horse but shields from the cold ground. Before this, Alice has only made love with Johnny. Reynard weighs almost nothing on her thighs and he’s hot all over; sweat dries on Alice’s skin whenever she touches the downy skin. With Johnny, she’s usually kept her eyes closed, but Reynard asks her to open them. After that, the important things happen between their eyes.
Suddenly, Alice finds a lump of ice inside herself. Ice so hard it’s almost stone, but she’s been numbed to its presence. Now she’s feeling warmer inside than ever in her life. The lump of ice melts down to tears in her eyes, and Reynard’s nimble hot fingers dry them off. Finally, inside her the spark flames up and burns the ice out.
Alice closes her eyes and wants the silence and warmth to never end. But then a warm object presses on her chest. Reynard speaks, and it sounds to Alice strangely like a prayer or an oath.
“You are familiar to my fire, smith’s daughter. You just have to believe when I tell you it is stranger than I can ever make you understand. Though you have revived me for a moment, I need stronger help to heal properly. I have to go with Agenor. Take this pendant, it comes from my homeland. Perhaps it will help me find you, for you may be sure that I shall return to look for you.”
Alice feels his body is cooling again. She gets up, dresses, and puts half of the remaining coals into the forge. The puff of the bellows makes talking difficult, but Alice notices herself grinning like a fool, and Reynard from his chair answers with a smile. It feels wonderfully good.
Very soon Alice must start talking to keep him awake. She talks about news headlines, explains to Reynard what the Olympic Games are. Nothing that comes to mind is too insignificant, including the difficulties between Prince Charles and Princess Diana, or the wars going on. Reynard gets sleepier and sleepier, however, so when Agenor’s fist finally bangs on the door Alice is almost relieved.
And then she’s only in their way. Agenor has three men with him; one takes Reynard’s horse and gives his own instead. It looks like Agenor’s steed, and Alice guesses it’s the kind that can cross portals. Reynard the Golden is dressed up, wrapped in several thick capes, and then bound on his saddle. Everything happens quickly and efficiently. At last, Agenor takes a heavy leather bag from his belt and pushes it into Alice’s limp hands; she can feel coins through the leather.
The men are almost too busy to pay attention to Reynard’s weak voice, but at last Agenor motions them to be silent. So there Alice is, standing again by Reynard’s horse. His voice is but a whisper.
“All my words to you have been requests or apologies. It is so again. I ask you not to tell anybody about the pendant or about us before I return. I’m sorry about Agenor’s behavior. The money may still be of some use. I may not even touch you without making the others suspicious. I do not ask you to be brave, you have always been brave. But let your spark shine bright, the better I’ll find you. Until we meet again, smith’s daughter. One last request: could you tell me your name?”
“Alice Aurora Cuokos,” Alice manages to whisper through her hoarse throat.
Then, everything is over. Agenor commands the men to start, the horses reach the portal and Alice stands alone by the smithy door. Inside, the package of cheese, the empty wine bottle, and the half-eaten box of raisins lie on the ground. The sleeping bag lies crumbled in the corner. Slowly, the warmth fades from inside Alice. But the ice is no longer there.
2006
For the last fifty kilometers, Ilmar has been intolerable, and the irritation has infected the twins, too. In a chorus of bawling and complaints they finally arrive to Granny’s. The car has barely stopped before Ilmar jumps into Granny’s arms. Alice unloads Siri and Sara from the back seat. There’s the usual arrival chaos as all the kids want to tell their news simultaneously. Mike tries to restrain Ilmar, again, but the boy just keeps on babbling excitedly. At last Alice manages to interfere and explain that Ilmar has got a place in a special class. Granny smiles, takes the boy by the hand, and they go inside, where the treat of raspberry syrup and cakes is waiting for the kids.
“Well, Ilmar monopolized all Granny’s attention again; Siri and Sara got only walk-on-parts,” Mike comments.
Alice tries to concentrate on gathering the girls’ toys from the backseat. Mike is tired after his workweek. The supervisor training is hard, and Johnny is behind again with his child support. She tries to be grateful that Mike never blames Ilmar when the boy is present.
“We’ve all been waiting for that ADHD group so intensely, so why don’t you let the boy be happy now. I’ll take him for a walk to calm him down. The girls will get their time with Granny.”
Alice gives Mike a hard hug until he’s smiling. Together they go inside, where Siri and Sara are spreading their crayons on the floor. Ilmar is quite happy to go out with Alice, and while they put on their shoes, Mike promises that tomorrow they’ll fix the downstairs door together. That’s a magnificent offer of reconciliation. Ilmar idolizes the skills of his stepfather, and by the carpenter’s bench he usually shows no sign of getting over-excited.
Outside, Ilmar runs ahead and Alice follows him at her own pace. It’s nice to be home again. There’s one of her best old reading stones, and behind that, the pine where Dad once made a wonderful swing. Alice half grins; strange how after the years she’s remembering more and more the good side of Dad. A rustle on the wayside; and Ilmar jumps on the road, yelling wildly. Alice pretends to be scared and Ilmar is overjoyed. He’s had the patience to stay hidden quite a while, that’s a new achievement.
The boy’s grin almost lets Alice forget the nurse’s recent words in the child health center. The nurse had been considerate and understanding when she examined Sara and Siri. The girls had done great, and the nurse said the three-year olds were developing extraordinarily normally. Alice hadn’t seen that as any kind of news, and so she had almost missed the nurse’s next comment.
“It’s wonderful how you’ve pulled yourself together and got your drinking under control. When the firstborn is a FAS child, we naturally worry about the next kids, too. I’m always so happy to see one can get on from such a challenging motherhood.”
The words still echo in Alice’s ears. Mike has told her to make a complaint but she doesn’t want to poke around the matter. The lonely teenage pregnancy of a drunkard�
��s daughter must have had all the ingredients for a catastrophe. Alice looks at her son. She has read the description of FAS children on the internet: small head, narrow eye slits, thin upper lip, small jaw, short upturned nose, loss of groove between nose and upper lip, small teeth, hirsuteness, delayed growth, hyperactivity, weakness of coordination. No son of a fairy prince.
For a moment, the ancient hurt still stabs her inside. The vague longing for what might have been. The bitterness of being left alone once again. She had been forced to make decisions. It had been easy to blame Johnny, how he just didn’t remember insisting on unsafe sex when drunk. The only help had been his maintenance payments. Alice had to postpone her studies. The restless, peculiar baby who cried night and day.
Only after the nurse’s recent remarks had Alice realized that many people must have thought she’d been drinking during her pregnancy. Yet no one ever said anything. That was what especially irritated her. Surely everybody knew about Dad’s drinking bouts, and yet nobody ever asked whether things were okay at home. Nobody cared about Ilmar, either. Mike was the first to care about them both.
Ilmar runs to hug her; the golden brown eyes sparkle with joy. He loves being at Granny’s; there’s space enough to run and to make noise. Alice smiles back, and tells him it’s time to go back home. On the way they have to pass the path to the smithy. Alice stopped going there five years ago, after Mike’s proposal. Thinking about time that passes at different speeds has bothered her sometimes, but the thought is easy to ignore. Reynard the Golden would not have much joy in a ninety-year-old hag. The everyday world is different from dreams and fairytales. Mike gets along well with Ilmar; the relationship with Johnny functions well enough. Alice herself is mostly content. That’s how it’s got to be.
The evening passes quietly and everyone goes early to bed. Mike promises Alice she may sleep late next morning; he’ll get up with the kids. What a nice man.
In the morning Alice thoroughly enjoys her privilege. In the kitchen she meets an idyllic scene. Mum is pouring coffee for Mike; Ilmar has kid-coffee in his cup: warm milk, sugar, and a spoonful of coffee for taste. He sits there serious as an old farmer at his morning cup. The girls are constructing a pillow cabin on the living room floor. Alice wishes them good morning and sits down to have a wonderfully unhurried cup of coffee.
Mike glances at Ilmar and they both grin. Alice sees immediately that they have something they want to tell her about. She expects Ilmar to start, but the boy stares expectantly at Mike, who turns to Alice’s Mum.
“Please tell me, Brigid, what was your father-in-law called? The smith who worked in the old smithy?”
“Franklin Cuokos it was by the book, though people here called him Frank,” Mum answers.
“That’s what I thought. I just wanted to make sure who was haunting the smithy when we went there, Ilmar and I.”
Coffee spills out of the cup, briefly burning Alice’s thigh. Ilmar stares at his mother, but Mike is obviously enjoying the surprise.
“Well, not quite haunting, but a curious thing, anyway. We decided to go visit the smithy with Ilmar this morning. It’s in the boy’s family line, anyway, from the mother’s side and the father’s, both.”
If Alice still had the cup in her hand, it would splinter. Questions flood her mind and she cannot utter any of them aloud. She’s unable to hide the storm of feelings, and sees the astonishment on Mike’s face.
“I mean, your family has built the smithy, and Johnny used to repair it. The bellows, too, that I helped to fix. I told Ilmar how we first met just because of those bellows. Don’t look so shocked, the boy is old enough to hear such things.”
Relief floods over Alice. Mike is a good man to praise Johnny’s part of the repair; Ilmar doesn’t have that much to be proud of in his father. But then she has to clear her throat.
“Oh no, that’s all right, it’s nice of you to remember. But whatever ghost are you talking about? That quite scared me.”
“The smithy was such a special place for Alice when she was small, she spent a lot of time there,” Mum interrupts.
Alice swallows a bitter remark about the smithy being the best place to escape her quarrelling parents. She just stares at Mike, who goes on.
“Yes, it was curious. Ilmar of course wanted to test the bellows his dad had made and I let him blow a couple of times into the old forge. They had stiffened, and the leather parts leak more than they did ten years ago, but the boy managed to make a kind of blast. But the curious thing was that for a while, I almost saw embers glow in the age-old heap of dust. And damn it, but I even felt a wave of heat. I don’t believe in ghosts, but for a moment it felt as if the old Franklin would have come to say hello. And I’m not corked, for Ilmar felt it too, didn’t you?”
Alice looks at Ilmar, who nods. She realizes the boy is strangely quiet; normally he would have started babbling for everybody’s attention. Mike, however, notices nothing. He just hands his cup to Mum.
“So that’s our ghost story. Must have some explanation, but it was strange, anyhow. Didn’t you have some coffee left? Then we’ll go out with Ilmar to look at the downstairs door; we’ll get that fixed now. You bring the girls out, Alice.”
Once outside, Alice remembers the two small sacks of coal in the car for tomorrow’s grill party. It’s been ten years now. She just has to find out.
In the afternoon, Alice sneaks away to the old cellar. Some of the corner bricks are loose and the leather bag is still hidden underneath; it contains all the coins from ten and twenty years back. Sometimes she has looked at the coins in daylight and thought they are probably silver; some of the smallest may even be gold. But it felt right to just bury them.
The bag’s weight makes her stop. She’s got Ilmar, Siri, Sara, and Mike. To them she is a real person, an almost thirty-year-old mother, a teacher at the Institute, her briefcase full of summer exams she should grade. And yet it feels like a good idea to take the bag with her in the evening. One could buy something with the money. Such as information, if someone else should arrive, someone not the golden-haired man. Then the vague idea clears out and becomes a strong feeling: Ilmar has to come with her to the smithy.
Ilmar sleeps alone in the little room, so it’s easy to wake him up when the others have fallen asleep. He’s drowsy, but picks up when Alice tells him that they are going for an adventure at the smithy, just the two of them. The provisions are ready. Excitedly, he starts to put on his shirt and jeans, while Alice wraps his pajamas in the bag. His first words almost stop her heart.
“Mummy, why did the fire almost catch when we went there? I felt it was sort of asleep and when I blew, it almost woke up. Was that a ghost, Mummy, or was the fire asleep?”
Ilmar’s eyes are large in the dark when Alice takes his hand and whispers that that’s why they are going to the smithy, to look again at the sleeping fire. Barefoot they tiptoe to the door and then to the woodshed. There the bags wait for them, including rubber boots for both, as the path is bedewed. The boy keeps silent all the way to the smithy.
Everything seems quiet at the smithy. Before they split up, Alice had persuaded Johnny to repair both the door and the roof. At that time, she spent every possible moment in the smithy. First every evening, then every Thursday, every third Thursday of the month, and finally every anniversary. Fired the forge up, blew the bellows, waited and been afraid, with no effect.
Now the yard is all grown over with grass; the former open field is almost a new forest. In the dark, a torch is necessary and Alice has brought two. The other she sets above the door to lighten up the insides where everything is at its old place: the bellows, the forge, and the junk in the corners. Ilmar walks to the forge and pushes his finger into the ash. Alice sees his disappointed face when nothing happens.
“Ilmar, I’ll bring the coal. Fire always needs food, just like a grill. Then we can experiment; you go to the bellows.”
Ilmar takes his place and Alice empties the small sack of coals into the forge. It’s but a
puny heap, and she adds the other sackful. Then she steps aside and looks at the confused boy.
“Mummy, it has to be fired with fluid or matches, or a lighter.”
“I know, Ilmar, but I thought you might want to try it first without. Like when you were with Mike.”
“Can you do that, Mummy?”
“No, but I know people who can. You just try it, there’s no hurry.”
Hesitantly, Ilmar grabs the bellows. He’s a slender boy, and it requires his whole weight to push down the stiff shaft and blow up a little cloud of ash. Alice watches carefully, but cannot see anything. The disappointment and relief mix in a sigh. Then she turns off the torch and the two of them are left in an almost dark smithy.
“Mummy, don’t do that. It’s scary in here.”
“No darling, it’s not. This is exactly the same smithy as before, only now we can see the glow better. Try again, please.”
Now they are both staring at the forge. Alice hears the bellows move again, and in the forge twinkles an almost invisible, tiny reddish glow. Ilmar sounds timid and excited.
“Mummy, I think I saw the fire. It sort of woke up. Shall I try again?”
“Yes, do.”
Her mouth is dry with tension when the bellows move again. Either the boy has gained courage or the bellows are moving more easily; anyway, the blow is much stronger. The glow is clearer, too, and for a moment Alice imagines a fleeting warmth. Ilmar giggles in excitement and blows again. The glow stays and brightens. The color spreads to the new coals; blow by blow the warmth increases.
It Came from the North Page 5