by Joanne Bell
“And what,” he said, “would be the point of that?”
“But I’m not happy now,” said the princess.
“Taste it,” ordered the raven pushing her fingers with his beak.
The berry was sour, and the princess spat it out.
Then she quietly turned away, paying no more heed to the enchanted bird. But as she traveled on, her worthy steed lagged farther and farther behind until one day his legs crumpled beneath him and he lay on the forest floor. Grave with disappointment, his eyes searched hers until they closed.
The princess wept silently, but still she carried on.
The only trail I find is a low tunnel I have to stoop through. A black pat of bear scat lies directly before me.
“Idiot,” I tell myself, out loud. Meat-eating bears have black smelly scat filled with hair and bone. I do a breaststroke-like motion through the thick brush, yodeling constantly, until I’m back in the spruce trees.
Eyes burning, the princess wandered on through the tangled forest so slowly that the fallen trees she’d clambered over in the morning were still visible in the moonlight.
Again the enchanted bird lit on a branch beside her.
“Princess,” said the bird, “you must return, for you are in great danger.”
“What danger?” snapped the princess. “It seems I’m not the one who has paid the price.”
“Only this,” said the raven. “That your life is going by without you.”
“ Are you looking for me?” The gruff voice of the dragon drifted through the night air.
He slid belly-first into the stream, like a shark breaking the smooth surface of the waters with his fiery snout.
The raven rose and tumbled, then rose again, flying frantically until lost from sight.
Up and up the bank, the dragon scrambled toward the princess. Dripping water, he breathed hot stale steam on her innocent face.
But in that moment, something happened. Time in all of its grace stopped, and she was no longer afraid.
A quiet happiness seemed to blow through the clearing and the still air, filling her senses with every shallow shaking breath she breathed. The princess stood very still and listened and waited.
The world about her grew brighter and clearer, and on the horizon a completely different bird—a hawk of mottled plumage—hung in the vortex of a warm current of air, riding its draft to the heavens. The princess never did learn who this strange bird was, but watching it hang and climb, she could only laugh and dip her head.
This was the moment she’d always dreaded, and now that it had arrived, she was not afraid. In fact, she welcomed its approach.
She had at last set eyes on her enemy.
“Take heed,” she said, hand on the shaft of her sword. If I die here, she realized, I will die content.
A wild recklessness seized hold of her. There was a wind blowing strong in that forest now, and its warmth filled her. She slid the sword seamlessly from its sheath. “I only wanted to see you and follow you to your lair. For you have laid waste to those whom I have loved.”
The dragon snapped his fiery jaws like a dumb beast, and coals slithered down his scales and hissed as they struck the earth.
“Be warned!” said the princess. She raised her sword and thrust it in the chest of the dragon.
For a moment nothing happened.
Then the princess braced herself on one knee and yanked the sword free. The dragon vomited porridge-like globs of phlegm and stumbled, choking, into the pure, pebble-strewn stream.
The earth curved at the distant horizon. Above them both, planets spun about unknown and uncounted suns. Around the dying dragon the clean water sang while his pestilent blood seeped out and mingled with its current.
And then the dragon’s body floated onto its side and slowly sank.
When the princess had cleaned her sword and returned it to her side, she looked about at the sunshine splashing through the forest. And the climbing hawk, who had broken free from the vortex and soared above her head.
Then through the magical forest came the drumbeat of hoofs, and both loyal steeds came prancing through the shafts of sunlight toward her and drew, front hoofs raised, to a stop.
“Princess?” The prince clambered from a hole in the river bank. He yawned and shook his head. “I’ve been asleep, I think.And I dreamed you were gone forever.”
The sound of “forever” echoes through the trees.
The moon trembles, tucked snugly into the sheltering nook between two peaks. I blink at its fading light. Brooks yawns and stretches his front legs, yowling when his wound stretches too.
Hours later, I stop on the bluff, the hot sun in my face. Below me is the clearing where the river I’ve been following and a larger river flow together. Our cabin and cache and shed and outhouse wait, scattered on the bank, as they’ve waited all these years. Water flows by and the sun shines on the rocks of the gravel bar where I fished with Dad. Across the river, mountains loom with Dall sheep huddled on the outcrops, staring down at us. Beyond the visible mountains are further mountains and valleys, layer upon layer east across the territories, where bears and wolves still wander free and people rarely visit.
“We’re home, Brooks. We did it.”
Brooks whimpers and leans against my legs.
“You’re going to sit by the stove now until you’re better. And eat. Think of that. Three meals a day and hot soup between meals.”
I take my juggling balls from my pack. Standing on the cliff before scrambling downhill, I throw them into the autumn air again and again. If I drop one, it might roll all the way to the clearing.
Before I go down, I turn to look at the way I’ve come. A shadow flickers through the tree trunks and is gone before I can even be sure it’s there.
The footing is steep, a scramble. Concentrating, I half slide down the bluff, rocks rolling underfoot, crashing and bouncing as they fall. Brooks whimpers behind me. Reaching the bottom I dust myself off and walk along the last bit of trail and through the clearing.
I’ve waited to come here since I was a little girl. I’ve lived here in my dreams. Dad disappeared from here. Only Mom came to search. Becky and I stayed with the neighbors and didn’t understand.
I hear wings flapping. The raven lands below us somewhere just out of sight.
At close range, home is not quite so intact. Shutters lie rotting on the ground, ripped from windows. The door gapes open. Across the clearing, broken dishes and pans are strewn. I walk inside. Window glass is shattered like bread crumbs all over the floor. The cookstove is on its side, along with the barrel stove for heating. Lengths of stovepipe are strewn about the cabin.
“We can’t sleep here, Brooks.” Panic is once again battering at my head. How many nights until Mom comes? I’ve lost track.
Brooks collapses at my side. His infection must be exhausting him. I will do whatever I have to do. Brooks needs rest—lots of it—warm and inside.
I start to pick up the pieces. When I hold the first broken plate in my hand, I remember breakfast many years ago.
11
Cleaning This Room
It was spring when Becky’s first litter of puppies was born in the night. The litter was two pups but only one lived. She named him Chili and now he lives in the cabin, mostly by the wood-stove, an arthritic but happy grandpa. Chili was the base of her team for many years. Now Becky runs his pups and grandpups when she races.
Mom fried pancakes that morning, and when I finished devouring my share, I handstanded across the room and into the bookshelf. Paperbacks rained on my head and Dad grinned. It was spring and the river ice dropped with a bang. I thought it was the books on my head.
Returning to the brambled clearing, I lay the two pieces of the plate carefully on the grass, jigsawed together. The clearing is being taken over by rosehip and raspberry bushes. There are areas of crushed grass where a moose has been bedding under the cache. The ladder is propped against a nearby spruce tree. I lean one hand on a rung
and it cracks. It needs fixing before I can climb up. After I’ve cleaned the cabin and made it comfortable for Brooks, I’ll figure out how.
The fall sun feels warmer here in the open. Soon the sun will slide between the peaks across the river. I’m here until Mom comes, I think. I’m not walking back with Brooks like this.
Numb, I slide down to the gravel bar and chuck stones— arm drawn back and stiff out from the body—across the rushing surface of the river. Sure there’s a mess, I think, but I can clean it up. Looking back, I take in the array of mountains I’ve spent days walking through. Very strange, I realize, mounding a few almost round rocks to juggle later. At this moment, I’m not worried.
For a few minutes the tide of panic has washed away.
This is my home; it’s where I belong.
I don’t clean up the clearing. I don’t do more than step into the cabin and look at the mess. It can all wait. The shed, however, hasn’t been touched. I slide back the bolt and open the door. Dad built it to open inward so the doorway could never be blocked by snowdrifts in a storm.
Inside is a jumble of gear: toboggan, hand-cranked washing machine Dad made from a forty-five–gallon drum, dog harnesses, fuel barrels, old stoves. A lone lump of rock salt once used for tanning hides is on the table beside mouse turds. I shove it in my pocket. It will do for a start.
Before Christmas, Dad used to hole up in here to make presents: puppets and a stage, pull toys, a rocking horse. Other times, Mom would sit by the stove and carve, but mostly she worked in the kitchen when we were playing or reading.
I make Brooks comfortable on an old sleeping bag I drag out from a discarded sled bag. Then I pry the shutters off the cabin with the hammer that still hangs on a nail just inside the door. I lean the shutters against the walls and go back inside. No room to even walk around until I’ve hauled out some gear. I’m sure there’s a pole bed heaped with musty old blankets in the far corner, but I don’t even try to reach it or the barrel stove in the opposite corner. It’s enough that it’s intact.
Tonight I’ll camp out. I’m not ready to tackle the cabin. Whistling, I unload my pack like every other night and pitch my tent in the clearing. Slowly, the sun slips behind the rosy mountains and the moon rises. I snap off lichen from a spruce tree and kick around until my boot hits the metal grill of the old fire-pit. Split chunks of wood are scattered beside it, rotten and wet, sunk in the earth. I snap dead branches off the trees in the forest and then remember the woodpile stacked against the overhang of the cabin wall.
Chunks of dry spruce are still stacked to the roof poles.
It was Becky’s and my job to stack the firewood and bring it in with Dad. Because I was so little, I was rather proud of my muscles. I remember following Dad into the cabin after he’d loaded a couple of small bits on my waiting outstretched arms. Mom was carving an owl at the table.
Bread steamed upside down on the counter beside a bowl of melted garlic butter.
“Strong like a moose,” laughed Dad when I clattered the firewood into its box.
And I cartwheeled back out the door for more.
This time when we got outside, Dad asked me to teach him. Over and over he took a running jump with his arms outstretched and then collapsed at the moment of impact. Finally I caught his knees at the proper angle and held them up for a split second. The dogs were howling and Dad was able to shout in triumph before he once again toppled over.
He wore a red lumberjack shirt.
It’s still hanging on a nail in the shed.
Behind the entrance to the dragon’s cave, where the sleeping prince had lain enchanted, was the sound of a trickling stream.
The prince and princess followed that trickle, leading their steeds along the water’s edge between sheer black cliffs, until the stream itself was arched with a stone entrance.
Through the entrance shone a small pond. White birds dove and planed back and forth from water to cliffs again and again during the hours of daylight. At dusk they flew in procession— long lines of birds above the many streams flowing like the spokes of a wheel—and slept under moonlight on the rocking waves of a dark deep sea.
But of this pond I cannot speak, for The Place Where the Stories Come From is silent and still and serenaded only by the great white birds winging in at dawn from the faraway sea. Still, there is a look of recognition in the eyes of those who have been there, who have breathed that air and drunk from that pond and dangled their fingers in that cool water.
When the prince and the princess rode back to the royal palace, it lay beneath a blanket of ivy. Not a bird stirred. The sun shone and bees alone droned amongst the acres of wild flowers. The prince and the princess did not speak on their return, though sometimes their gazes crossed and then moved away.
“The king is sleeping in his royal bedroom,” ventured the prince as they clattered across the moat on the ancient wooden bridge. “He has been asleep since we left.”
And side by side they drew up in front of the decaying palace to face what lay inside.
I kneel beside the fire-pit outside the cabin door and light a match on a rock from the circle. I hold it to the kindling and watch the flames spread first to my teepee of twigs and then to sticks and chunks of split spruce. Flames lap at the outside of the wood first, curving with the contours of the wood until each piece disintegrates, collapsing into spruce stumps, while Mom was carving.
The forest is silent, like a beach when the tide has been suddenly sucked out to sea. Without warning, a wave of loneliness crashes over me. Something’s choking in my throat. I stand away from the smoke and realize I’m moaning. How can I make camp? Or look for my father or clean the mess he left behind? Squatting on a chunk of upended firewood, I hunch over the flames until I can door.
I’ve forgotten Brooks. I unzip the tent and he squeezes onto my feet. I haven’t even washed his wound tonight. Nor can I force myself to move. I don’t want to see the cabin.
From across the river I hear wolves calling to each other over the empty expanse of tundra beyond the trees. They must have followed us down. Becky says wolves call partly to mark their territory.
In the morning, loosely woven mats of slush ice are floating with the current past the cabin, flowing together and sealing shut like scabs along the banks. After tea I stand in the cabin doorway. I’ve been home for part of a day now and a night. I remember things from yesterday: new memories are being stuck over the old.
“Dad!” I shouted. “There’s an otter in the river.” Dad had shaving cream on his face, and Chili, the new puppy, was sucking noisily at Ginger. “Gross!” I muttered, although I secretly believed it was beautiful.
Dad dabbed shaving cream on my nose and I stuck it back on him. I somersaulted down the bank to where Becky was calling. It was spring, and though I was too little to understand why, there was a fresh start in the air.
Brooks leans against my leg. I unhook an old parka from a nail behind the door and spread it out for him to lie on. Slowly he sinks onto it and slurps at his wound.
My throat burns from trying not to cry. Then, very clearly, the thought comes to me: there’s no one here to listen.
I pick up the old broom from the corner and sweep, though a shovel would be more useful. If I live to be a great-grandma, I will only ever have one father. Only one man will ever say with pride, “My daughter did that.”
And, dead or alive, he left.
“What part of that, Dad,” I ask the man dabbing the shaving cream on my nose and laughing, “didn’t you understand?”
I look at my hands, wrapped around the handle and tip of the broom. They’re fineboned and strong and can juggle fire. They’re grown-up hands now, like my father’s, not a child’s, and they need to clean this room.
PART 2
The Wind Passes Over It
12
Pirates in the Night
As for man, his days are as grass;
As a flower of the field so he flourisheth.
For the win
d passes over it, and it is gone;
And the place thereof shall know it no more.
(Psalm 103)
The words are printed in black marker on cardboard tacked behind the stove. The edges are stained and sooty. I don’t know why I didn’t notice it last night. Pretty weird—it doesn’t sound like the Dad I remember at all. Much too serious. I tuck it inside the pages of a book and stick it on a shelf.
While the cabin light is still dim, I dissolve the salt lump in a basin of hot water and wash the pus from Brooks’s side. I don’t wait until the sun floods the floorboards with light. I don’t want to see the wound too clearly.
While Brooks naps, I fill a tin bucket with debris from the floor and chuck it where the slop pile once spilled down the bank. Around noon I wrestle the two stoves back in place under their safeties and connect the scattered lengths of pipe. I find a couple in the shed next door to replace the most badly battered, and somehow, by the time the sun is sinking between peaks, pipe is sticking from stove holes out the roof.
I light fires in both stoves and keep shoveling out glass while the smoke clears in the cabin. I dump the broken glass in the river so animals won’t slash their feet walking by the clearing. The glass should be pulverized to sand with next spring’s breakup.
At dark I hammer plastic bags from my pack over window holes and light kerosene lamps. A barrel behind the cabin still contains fuel. Tomorrow I can look for real see-through window plastic. We always left some to replace any windows broken in our absence and for doubling over glass during cold snaps. I boil rice with dried onions and donate most of my portion to Brooks, who’s shifted to lying beside the cookstove. I move the parka underneath him, but he barely rouses.